All posts by Matthew Callan

Pointless Nostalgia Video, Politics Schmolitics

Your New President: Trump Castle

I remain convinced that 1) the Trump-for-President talk will fade as soon as a more viable Republican candidate emerges, and 2) even if it doesn’t, he will have his ass handed to him as soon as he attempts any serious campaigning. The man is a grown child, a spoiled brat, and he hasn’t the slightest idea of what he’s in for if he actually runs for office.

The biggest nightmare that awaits him in running for office is an arena in which he can definitively lose. I don’t think Trump could handle that, because he has never truly and unequivocally lost at anything. In business, you can technically fail–as Trump has done many times–yet still turn a profit and, in a sense, win. Now that he’s dipping his toes into political punditry, he still can find a way to win when he loses. When Obama produced his birth certificate, Trump got to take credit for “forcing the issue.” So even though he lost in the sense that he was dead wrong (and also lying, it seems, about having all those “investigators” in Hawaii), he could claim that he “won” by making the president respond to his idiotic needling.

But when you actually run for office, you can lose. Not only that, but everyone will know exactly how badly you lost. I can’t imagine that Trump would put himself in such a position.

However, since speculation about him running will not go away, I promise to regularly post some Trump-related monstrosity until it does. First up, an ad that is deeply ingrained upon my psyche. Because Trump was not satisfied with just plaguing Atlantic City with his tacky casinos. He also had to pollute the local airwaves with his cheesy ads. If you lived anywhere in the tri-state area in the last 30 years, you probably saw this a thousand times more than you ever wanted to. The 80s-riffic jingle in this ad gets re-stuck in my head once every few months, at which point I raise my fists to the heavens and scream TRUMP!!!

How classy was Trump Castle Hotel and Casino? You can hazard a guess based on the fact that a large yellow sign that blares FREE PARKING gets as much screen time as anyone else in this ad.

Also, if you want to know what kind of person would seriously contemplate voting for Trump for president, peep this comment that appears below the video.

A Henry VIII-esque slob of a king and FREE PARKING–an inspiration to us all! TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP..

NYC, Pointless Nostalgia

My Encounter with the Wondrous Hypercolor Tapestry

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I hate to be one of Those People, but New York City ain’t what she used to be. Then again, she never was. In New York, the old is constantly being subsumed by the new. The pace can range from light speed to glacial, but nothing can last. Complaining about this is almost as old as the city itself. I bet Peter Stuyvesant bitched when they started building houses above Canal Street.

There is one thing that has disappeared from New York in my lifetime, however, and I do think the city is worse off for it. That is the Weird Little Shop, which has virtually no chance of surviving in the NYC of the 21st century, where real estate is at such a premium it can no longer accommodate the eccentric dreams of kooks who somehow luck into retail space.

By Weird Little Shop, I don’t mean a place that specializes in one curious niche, because those still exist in droves. And I don’t mean a thrift store, either, because there are still plenty of those, too. And a thrift store usually has some kind of focus and organization. What I mean is the kind of hovel that had zero focus and sold whatever the hell it felt like. Not a single thought or deed was spared to appealing to anything but the proprietor’s whim.

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Tuneage, Videocracy

Titus Andronicus, “No Future Part III: Escape from No Future”

Here it is! The video for Titus Andronicus’ “No Future Part III: Escape from No Future”, directed by Tom Scharpling of Best Show fame. It is a love letter to New Jersey that people from any geographic origin can appreciate. I saw a good chunk of this video shot over the course of a day, and you would not believe the amount of blood, sweat, and tears that went into it. Tom and the band and producers Robert Hatch-Miller and Puloma Basu deserve all the praise imaginable. Plaudits, please!

Enjoy! If you squint (and can stand to do so), you can see me for brief moments during the Little Egg Harbor segment. Though you’re probably better off just enjoying the video.