2009 Laminated List # 2

Tina Fey is #2 on my 2009 Laminated List, which really shouldn't be a surprise to anyone who's followed HOT POOP for awhile...Last year Ms. Fey ended up at #3 because of a sudden fascination I had with Evangeline Lilly. I think it was largely out sympathy because of all the "Kate Hate" one can find all over the internet. LOST fans just don't like Kate, and alot of 'em also claim Ms. Lilly is a crap actress. Whatever. Ridiculous.

But this is about Tina Fey, not Evangeline Lilly. This is about bouncing back to reclaim her rightful place at #2 on this year's Laminated List because while she is an attractive woman, it is her sense of humor and her intelligence and her subtle cynicism/sarcasm/sass that makes her one-of-a-kind, and a woman for the ages...Is it too soon to call her an icon, or did the whole Sarah Palin thing cement her place in TV and Pop Culture history?

Whatever...After 3 seasons, 30 Rock is without a doubt the best and funniest comedy on television, and obviously Tina Fey is the biggest reason why...The show is her baby, and it's a great ensemble, no doubt, but Ms. Fey has proven herself to be a really great actress after years of being known mainly as a writer...Her Liz Lemon character is a loveable mess. A smart, educated woman in charge of network TV show who can't seem to catch a break in any part of her life - her writers and actors don't really respect her as their boss, her boss doesn't take her seriously either, and her lovelife can't seem to get any serious traction, nevermind her creepy loser ex-boyfriend, Dennis...And she battles back against 'em all with a sharp tongue and mouthfuls of junkfood...I've said it before, but that scene from Season 2 when she mows down an entire deli sandwich in about 15 seconds at airport security checkpoint is one of the hottest things I've ever seen in my life...

Anyways, like so many others, I find Tina Fey to be smart and funny and cute and really, what's not to love? What more needs to be said?

Hotcha! Hank

Small Town Values

I would like to write about "values" today. The desire arose because once again this election year, we are hearing the term "small town values" bandied about by the Republicans in the context that people who live in major metropolitan areas (presumably more liberal/Democratic) have lesser values than people who live in small towns. This notion is complete and utter bullshit, of course, and I just thought I'd share some anecdotal evidence to counter this claim.

I grew up in a suburban town of 8000 people. For the most part, it is an upper-middle class community, and as I was growing up there in the 70's and 80's, there were exactly two black families in the entire town. This wasn't by accident, either. If you've heard the term "white flight", that's pretty much the reason why Grafton is 99% white - these white families were literally escaping the city of Milwaukee and it's minority populations in the aftermath of desegregation, as dictated by the Supreme Court's 1954 Brown Vs. Board of Education ruling. Grafton was founded in the 1870's, but didn't see it's one major population "explosion" until the decade or so after that ruling, and this holds true for many small towns just like Grafton. I mention all this because this trend, this phenomenon, illustrates a very specific value - that many white people simply do not want to live, work, play, or go to school with non-white people.

Racism is a value.

That's the most pervasive value in Grafton, but it's not a value that's readily apparent on the surface. No, this sort of racism is a quiet kind, so subtle that plenty of small town people don't even realize they're practicing it, but it is there nonetheless. It's part of a larger mindset that shows itself more readily in other prejudices and opinions, many of which are easiest to identify in the halls of a typical small town high school, where cliques inform the dynamics of the entire school, and one's status is pretty much wholly determined by surface and appearances.

In high school, if you are fat, you are almost guaranteed to never be one of the "cool kids", and you will have to suffer countless slings and arrows of outright mockery and public humiliation. If you do not wear the most current and fashionable clothing and shoes, you will be ridiculed and reminded of those shortcomings ceaselessly. If you are gay, you will face all those slings and arrows, nevermind the steady, neverending beatdowns (or threats of beatdowns) from "the jocks". If you are a girl who is sexually active, you will be called a "slut" and a "whore", but if you are a girl who who isn't sexually active, you will be called a "dyke" by the very guy who want to sex you up. If you are academically gifted, you will be marginalized, mocked and perhaps even beat up with some regularity. Hopefully, you are not a fat homosexual who is academically gifted.

I mention these sorts of things because they point to an overriding set of values that are pervasive in small town America, a set of values that is best described as xenophobic, I suppose. If you do not "fit in", or are merely perceived to be "different", the chances are quite good that you will be ignored, marginalized, ostracized, and perhaps even the target of physical threats and violence itself.

(WHO IS BARACK OBAMA? McCain's campaign commercial asks countless times every day, and if you do not believe his campaign is deliberately feeding into the xenophobia and racism of the Republican base, you're probably a part of that base, a base that is becoming increasingly rabid with vocal hatred, if you've seen the YouTube videos of recent McCain-Palin rallies.)



It would easy to say that racism and xenophobia are interchangeable, but that isn't quite true, because I moved to a small unincorporated farming town of approximately 120 people, a place called Helenville, where I lived for about two years before coming to Madison. Now, I'm a white male, so you would think my presence in Helenville would not be an issue, but I was instantly perceived as an outsider, an "other", and during those two years, I couldn't seem to shake that stigma.

First of all, I have a Polish name, which proved to be troublesome to a community that was almost entirely German. I was even asked by one of the locals once, "So, are you one of those Polish Jews?"

I shit you not.

In this small, unincorporated town of 120 people, there are three churches, two taverns, a post office and a bank. God and alcohol rule Helenville, and as you can imagine, drunken fundamentalism was rampant. Even in the most innocuous of conversations, somehow topics such as "fags" and "baby killers" would get woven in. At first I would protest, exposing my liberal tendencies, and I believe these outspoken protestations were responsible for the locals never liking or accepting me. Like most small towns like this, word travelled fast, so after the very first of my protestations, I started noticing the dirty looks, and the way the locals basically shunned me. A friendly wave to neighbors as I walked to the post office would be met with cold indifference. If I entered one of the local taverns, all conversations would cease immediately and all eyes would turn to me. It was unnerving at first, but soon became laughable.

Like I said, gossip is quite prevalent in communities like this, so from time to time I would hear word of alcoholism, infidelity, domestic abuse, and even incest. It would seem every last person in town had their secrets, except that there were no secrets.

In that way, Helenville is no different than Grafton. I can tell you that on my own block in Grafton, we had a married woman having an affair with a married man who lived in the house behind hers. More than once, my friends and I saw him sneaking from his house to her house late at night (yeah, most of us had very liberal curfews), when her husband was out of town on business. Across the street we had a raging alcoholic that beat his children with regularity. These children would grow into teenagers who were exceedingly violent and hateful themselves. Meanwhile, up the street, there was a kid who took great pleasure in torturing and killing cats, and was so creepy in general, that none of the other kids in the neighborhood wanted anything to do with him. When my sister's cat, Tigger, suddenly disappeared, never to be seen again, we immediately suspected this kid. I assume this boy grew up to be a serial killer.

Alcoholism and drug abuse were also fairly rampant in Grafton. In fact, around 1982, two former Grafton high schoolers stabbed a third to death in his bedroom over a cocaine deal gone bad. Stabbed him more than two dozen times, in fact. In my own experiences, it was just as easy to procure any kind of drug imaginable as it was to go to one of the four liquor stores in our town to buy beer.

I guess I could go on and on with anecdotes about small town life, but I hope I've made my point.

And my point is this - conservative Republicans can talk about "small town values" all they want, but the fact of the matter is, small town values are no better than the values found in any large city. People are people, flaws and all, no matter where you live, and if anything, I would argue that people are worse in small towns, because there is the sheen of hypocrisy that covers everyone and everything. Many people in small towns are doing the exact same bad shit that people in the cities are doing, but they wrap themselves in scripture and the flag, and claim to be better than all the "fags" "niggers" and "commies" who are supposedly a blight on those cities and a threat to their "small town values" and America itself.

So, Sarah Palin can invoke "Joe Sixpack" all she wants, but know this - plenty of those Joe Sixpacks are alcoholics who routinely abuse their spouses and children, and then they go to church on Sunday where they're repeatedly told that it is the Godless liberals and secularists who are the problem with America.

Now I'm living in Madison, a progressive, liberal city which those same smalltown Joe Sixpacks like to say is "20 square miles surrounded by reality". If places like Helenville are "reality", I'd much rather stay here, safely ensconsed in our relative "insanity", thank you very much.

Hotcha! Hank

Considering "Ralph"

You know, a sufficient amount of fuss has been made about the names Sarah and Todd Palin gave to their five children, and plenty of stale and pedestrian jokes have been made about such on late night television and elsewhere, but I don't agree with any of this poo-pooing and tittering, so I would like to take this opportunity to say that the names she gave those kids are really the only thing I actually like about Sarah Palin...That and the fact that she looks alot like the woman who is #3 on my 2008 Laminated List, but that's an entirely different issue I won't get into now, or ever...

"Consider for a moment the beauty of the name 'Ralph.'" - Frank Zappa on The Joan Rivers Show

By now you should be aware of my great love for Frank Zappa, naming this very HOT POOP blog after one of his songs after all, and I happen to agree with Frank's philosophy on names and the naming of things, be they children or studios or your favorite fountain pen or touring vans or sandwiches, or all ten of your wife's toes...Life's too short to be boring, first of all, and secondly, what kind of leg up are you giving your child if you name him Ralph or Steve or Brian? Those are names custom made for Accounts Payable, you know? But more to Frank's point, "Ralph" is just an ugly fucking name.

Frank Zappa named his four children Moon Unit, Ian Donald Calvin Euclid, Ahmet Emuukha Rodan, and Diva Thin Muffin Pigeen...

If you don't see "Dweezil" on this list, that's because the hospital refused to put that name on the birth certificate...Ian Zappa's name wasn't officially changed to Dweezil until he was five years old, and at his own, Dweezil's, request...As the well-known story goes, he is named after one of Gail Zappa's pinky toes...Seems quite natural to me...Of course, his first official name is derived from three Mothers Of Invention members - Ian Underwood, Donald Preston and Euclid James "Motorhead" Sherwood - and Frank's best friend and graphic artist Cal Schenkel, and I think that's pretty cool...Rather conventional, too.

As for his other three children...Well, I'm not sure what the meaning of Moon Unit might be, though I can tell you that "Unit" is her middle name...The name Moon itself, is quite hippie-ish, which is baffling to me because Frank had absolutely no love for the hippies...Hmmm...Perhaps his wife Gail actually named their eldest child...Again, if you don't consider "Unit", Moon is a pretty conventional name for a year like, oh, 1967...

Ahmet Emuukha Rodan is a damn fantastic name in my book...The first name, Ahmet, is a derivation of the Arabic name Ahmad, meaning "highly praised", and is one of Prophet Mohammad's many given names...Now that's a name to live up to, and again, is an incredibly conventional name in many parts of the world...Emuukha was a name of Frank's own creation, and also the name of one of his groups, The Abnuceals Emuukha Electric Orchestra, and Rodan, of course, was/is the winged dinosaur nemesis of Godzilla...A strong, masculine name, and all in all, a very fine name for a young man with which to make his mark in the world...

Diva Thin Muffin Pigeen was the loudest baby in the the maternity ward, and that's how she got her first name, a name which prefigures the whole "diva culture" that has become prevalent over the past decade or so, and once again Frank proves scarily prescient, and has given her a name readymade for greatness...With a name like Diva, anything seems possible, and probable...As for Thin Muffin, well, who doesn't love a muffin, even a thin one? And let's not forget, Frank's studio is named The Utility Muffin Research Kitchen (UMRK), and as much as Frank loved that studio, and lived much of his life in there, you gotta believe naming his youngest daughter after his studio is a damn fine way to keep her in this thoughts when he's slaving away over tapes down in his dangerous kitchen...Pigeen? Ya got me.

"People make a lot of fuss about my kids having such supposedly 'strange names'. But the fact is that no matter what first names I might have given them, it is the last name that is going to get them in trouble." - Frank Zappa in The Real Frank Zappa Book

Enough about Frank Zappa's kids...What about Sarah Palin's children?

Track...I'm not sure what Track Palin's middle name is, but the name Track is a very strong and masculine name, evoking trackers, and the tracking of animals, or even those who blaze trails through the wilderness...Trackers are smart and sensible and fearless, and so a name like this is outstanding in my mind...Of course, we shouldn't forget father Todd Palin, who happens to race snowmobiles, among other manly, Alaskan pursuits...Racing those snow machines around, ayup, race tracks...All in all, the name Track is an athletic and manly name, a name to aspire to...

According to Sarah Palin, daughter Bristol is named after Bristol Bay, where her and her husband have both pursued commercial fishing careers, a decidedly rugged and demanding occupation in a certainly beautiful body of water, and an Alaskan body of water at that...It is a name that evokes home and hard work and beauty and nature, so how can anybody make fun of that?

There have been no official explanations for her other two daughter's names, Willow and Piper...It has been noted that there is a small Alaskan town called Willow & Piper, and that seems like an easy explanation...Willow isn't an entirely uncommon/unknown name for a girl, and one thinks perhaps of Sci-Fi Fantasy novels, and of course, the lesbian witch character Willow from Buffy The Vampire Slayer...Taken as is, it is another perfectly fine and lovely name for a daughter, as hippie-ish as Moon Zappa, and fairly conventional at heart. And the name Piper is just as conventional, an Old English name that according to my googling, is the 240th most popular name for a girl in the past decade...If I'm not mistaken, actress Gillian Anderson has a daughter named Piper...Of course, the Piper Super Cub is a very popular small engine plane used extensively for tracking and hunting...

Speaking of tracking again, we finally arrive at Sarah Palin's youngest child, her infant son Trig. Our first thought when we hear this name is Trigonometry, of course, which just so happens to be the mathematics of triangles, the measuring of their sides and angles...From there, we must consider triangulation, the process of finding the location of a point by measuring angles to it from other known points...Trig Points are beacons placed out in wilderness terrains, especially hills and mountains, to help rescuers locate missing people and vehicles and small aircraft such as Piper Super Cubs...Trig also happens to be an old Norse word meaning "true" and "strong", and again, taken in context like this, is a completely masculine name that makes all the sense in the world to me...Anyways, the baby's full name is Trig Paxon Van Palin, and his middle name Paxon, is named after "one of the most beautiful spots in Alaska" according to Sarah and Todd Palin. But finally, Sarah Palin has joked on record that she chose Van as his second middle name because Van Palin sounds like Van Halen, and being a rather big fan of that band's original line-up, I don't even really consider this a joke at all. Seems perfectly cromulent to me...

My point to all this blather is that I find the names of Sarah Palin's kids to be not only normal, but actually rather striking and powerful...They are names that might be helpful to them in finding their own identities...Names to aspire to...Names to become...They are certainly not boring names...They are not the names of Inventory Managers or Chiropractors, and so all the jokes on late night TV and zipping around the internet just aren't funny to me...

As Frank Zappa noted in his book, it's that last name that's gonna give 'em trouble...Many might think Sarah Palin gave her kids unusual, even funny, names, but whatever obstacles those names might incur, they're nothing compared with being Palins...And the only thing funny about that is Tina Fey...

You Hotcha! Henry Ezekiel Mohaski

Something 4 The Weekend # 86

Dazzling Killmen: Face Of Collapse: "In The Face Of Collapse" [mp3]

As I've been telling my coworkers lately, I'm glad that my family had a sizable vegetable garden when I was a kid, and I'm really glad that I was raised to hunt and fish, and I'm super glad that I learned all sorts of survival skills in the Boy Scouts...And I'm also grateful that my grandpa Frank told me stories about the Great Depression (about his American history in general), because I'm not sure how bad this economic meltdown is gonna get in the next few weeks and months and years, but I won't be surprised in the least if it all goes completely to hell, and we all are forced to hunt and gather to get by...We all laughed about Sarah Palin being able to field dress a moose just a month ago, and here we are...Who's laughing now? Who's gonna be laughing last?

LOL...

I'm exaggerating, of course, but then again, one only needs to Wiki "the Long Depression" and "the Great Depression" to get a flavor of the possible...

I think alot of us are currently in a fog regarding all that serious shit that's going down on Wall Street, and most of us are telling ourselves it can't happen here, but as those two links so clearly tell us, it certainly can happen here, and really, it's going to happen from time to time, and now's as good a time as any...

In fact, today's circumstances are alot like the circumstances of The Long Depression. Replace the overbuilding of railroads with the overbuilding of new homes, and the stories are just about the same...Crazy speculation by the big banks, plenty of fraud to go around, and a very select few, the "robber barons", those captains of industry, get crazy fucking rich, live like royalty, and generally rub it in everybody else's faces...In the midst of 24 years of economic turmoil among the working classes, this was "the gilded age", as Mark Twain called it, and doesn't it all look shiny and familiar?

It can happen here. It has happened here. It's gonna happen here, sooner or later. I don't know about you, but I'm gonna sight my compound bow this weekend, after the Packers game...

Hotcha! Hank

Some Random Thoughts About Sarah Palin

1) When Sarah Palin said at her church a couple years ago that the war in Iraq was "a task from God", did she not know that the Christian God and the Muslim God is the exact same God? Taking this further, it would seem that Muslim fundamentalists who wish to see Israel and the Jewish people wiped from the earth do not realize that their Allah and the Hebrew God are one in the same as well? If there really is a God that actually pits different groups of believers against each other, that's not a God I want anything to do with...My only point here is that legitimate spirituality has been bastardized, if not outright destroyed, by organized religion, politics, and basic human ignorance. My conclusion here is that Sarah Palin's own spirituality is malformed and lacking in any sort of depth or nuance, just like most fundamentalists of any religion.

2) Hunting wolves from an airplane is not hunting. It's akin to the type of quail hunting Dick Cheney was doing when he shot Harry Whittington in the face, wherein a covey of quail are released from a cage very near the hunter, and a successful kill is all but guaranteed. Let me put this another way, you've heard the expression "shooting fish in a barrel"? Well, that's exactly what shooting wolves (or any animal) from an airplane is...Now, I grew up in a family that hunts, namely whitetail dear with bow and arrow, and small game with small-calibre rifles, and all I can say is the kind of wolf hunting that Sarah Palin is proposing is not only morally questionable, but it's simply fucking lame. There is no "sport" to the endeavor. In other words, the animals don't stand a fucking chance. Now, you might take issue with any sort of hunting, for any sort of reason ("won't somebody think of the animals"), but I was raised and taught to have respect for the animals I was hunting, and part of that is to give the animal a sporting chance, so to speak. The kind of hunting that Palin apparently does, and Dick Cheney certainly does, is lazy, and speaks volumes to their character as human beings. They can't be bothered to actually work for their kill. The ends justify the means in these scenarios. They don't care how the animal was hunted, just that it's carcass is now field-dressed and draped across the hood of the armored Secret Service SUV.

3) While it's true that Pit Bull breeds account for approximately a third of all fatal dog attacks in the United States (according to the CDC), I believe that most of our beliefs about the viciousness of Pit Bull breeds arise from media hype and bad publicity as much as anything else. We are talking here about a dog that is widely bred for illegal dog-fighting, and since this is the case, it shouldn't be surprising that Pit Bulls are responsible for so many fatal (and non-fatal) attacks. The truth is that Pit Bulls were first bred for dog fighting not only because of their tenacity and physical strength, but because they show a propensity to NOT attack their owners, nor Pit Bulls of the opposite sex. If you'll allow me to be literal and humorless here, when Sarah Palin joked that the difference between hockey moms and pit bulls is lipstick, what she is in essence saying (even though I know the joke isn't meant in this way) is that she is willing to viciously attack "the enemy" (in this case Democrats and Liberalism) while remaining completely faithful to her own handlers (in this case Republicans and Conservatism, specifically John McCain and his campaign). Thus Sarah Palin, characterizing herself as a Pit Bull, is willing to play hardcore partisan politics, which stands in stark contrast to one of McCain's stronger messages on the campaign trail, that the "change" he seeks in Washington is one of cooperation and non-partisanship between Democrats and Republicans. In this light, it would seem to me that one of the major reasons McCain chose Palin as his VP running mate is so that she can do the "dirty work" of being his attack dog, so that McCain himself can appear to remain above the fray of attack politics and the ongoing partisanship that has so deeply polarized not only our national politics, but the American populace in general. Of course, this strategy is nothing new in Presidential politics (and might even be one of the reasons Obama selected Biden), and so one can only conclude that not only is McCain not an agent of fundamental change in the way politics is played in Washington, but that he and Palin represent nothing but more of the same. Maverick, indeed.

4) And what about this whole "hockey mom" thing? It's a variant of "soccer mom", obviously, and it connotes a middle-class white woman, usually married, who literally drives her children to assorted activities because she values her children and family above all else in her life. The term has been used by female politicians over the past decade or so to suggest that they are just like the average woman voter. In the case of Sarah Palin, or any other female politician who uses the term, I must call "bullshit". Anyone who aspires and attains the office of Governor of a state simply cannot value her children above her own political ambitions. If that were the case, Palin would not have actively sought a public office that is exceedingly time-consuming, that has undoubtedly kept her away from her family far more than most other jobs. In fairness, any politician, male or female, who's office is that "important", spends an inordinate amount of time away from family. They may value their family, but by the very nature of the political world, they can never value that family more than their own ambitions and power. Otherwise they'd never get into politics to begin with, but would hold a "normal" job that brings them home to that family at the end of each and every day. Sure, plenty of politicians have risen from a "normal" life and lifestyle, but they left that life behind in pursuit of their ambitions. When a politician tells us he or she is just like us, don't fucking believe it for a second. The rarified air of state and national politics does not reflect the reality of "normal" life in any way, shape or form. If Sarah Palin becomes our Vice President, how much actual time do you think she is actually going to spend with her children, whether she wants to or not? How much time (nevermind "quality time") do you think Bill Clinton spent with daughter Chelsea during his 8 years in the White House?

5) Back to religion and faith...While Sarah Palin was born Catholic, her family joined the Pentecostal Church when she was four years old. Two things to consider regarding the Pentecostal Church - many adherents believe and practice "speaking in tongues", which is a strange phenomenon that has more in common with snake-oil salesmen and vaudeville acts than actual spirituality (in my opinion) and secondly, and more importantly, Pentecostals believe that one cannot enter heaven based on good deeds alone, but must accept Jesus Christ as their savior. I have always found this brand of Christianity troubling, because to me it exemplifies a spirituality that has no roots in community or morality. If one can attain salvation through mere faith, one is not compelled to adhere to any sort of morality. In other words, one can be an asshole in their everyday life, treating others like shit, and still go to heaven. To me, this is the antithesis of Christ's core teachings, which include the idea of caring for the poor, the hungry, the meek, and those people unfairly persecuted in life. In other words, at the core of Sarah Palin's religious beliefs, one is not compelled or required to care about, or care for, those who need help the most. In general, Christian fundamentalism, as it is practiced in the United States, adheres to this belief in faith over good deeds. If you believe, as I do, that too many Christians are not very Christian in their behavior and beliefs, it is because they simply do not believe they need to be good or moral, to find salvation. This is a basic tenet of the religious right, and is a central reason why the Republican Party, which has been strong-armed by the religious right for the past 20-30 years, is not the party of the "common man". They simply don't give a shit. It's akin to saying, "I got my salvation, you get yours." They are not their brother's keeper, and as such, will never help to make America a better place. Anybody remember Hurricane Katrina and the plight of those stranded in New Orleans? That situation was as sad and dire as it was because of beliefs such as these. This is not to say that all fundamentalists do not practice good deeds, but that their core belief absolves them of that practice, and far too many take advantage of the loophole, so to speak.

HPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHP

Barack Obama and Joe Biden may very well not be the answer to our current woes in this country, but they're a decidedly better option than John McCain and Sarah Palin.

Hotcha! Hank