Category Archives: Politics Schmolitics

NYC, Politics Schmolitics

Flogging a Dead Chimp

As soon as I heard that a NY Post editorial cartoonist was in hot water, I knew it was Sean Delonas. Sure, he’s the only editorial cartoonist they have, but he’s also the worst cartoonist on the planet.

I honestly don’t think Delonas intended to be racist, or even crypto-racist, when he portrayed the author of the stimulus package (who he insists is not meant to be Obama, although who else could it be?) as The Infamous Mad Chimp that terrorized Stamford, CT. I just think he’s stupid enough to not know the racist undertones of what he drew, or too ignorant to realize that there’s a long history of racist imagery involving monkeys.

The cartoon isn’t really a racist joke because it’s not a joke at all. He just shoe-horned a political news story (stimulus package) with a crazy non-political news story (mad chimp). It’s the hallmark of someone who’s dumb and unfunny, but thinks he’s really smart and hilarious. It’s says to the reader, See, I read the news! These two things happened in the news! Get it? It’s funny cuz they happened!

Delonas went to the Jack T. Chick School for Portraying Bitterness and Revenge in Art. I can totally see him drawing sinners roasting in hell, and laughing with each stroke. That would be a lot of laughs, because the guy loves to cross-hatch. His cartoons are so dark (literally and figuratively), I wonder how the Post can afford all the ink needed to print them.

Or how any light can escape them. The universe of his cartoons is one of dirt and despair and hopelessness and All-Encompassing Wrong. Every character in his cartoons looks like a police sketch of a dead hobo.

I see his cartoons all the time on the subway, as my fellow passengers flip through copies of the Post. I can spot them out of the corner of my eye from 15 feet away, and immediately I feel a little ill. I know that on that page, some political leader Delonas doesn’t like is being lowered into a vat of acid, or shot out of a cannon, or dropped from the top of the Empire State Building. The man is not subtle. Or sane.

About 20 years ago, a trend popped up in cartoons: The Landscape Far Side Imitators. Newspapers wanted one-panel cartoons with a Far Side sensibility, but they also wanted them to use the same dimensions as the other comic strips on the page. Because newspaper editors are lazy and unimaginative (gee, I wonder why papers are in such trouble these days?).

So they came up with all of these one-panel cartoons that had the same dimensions as Peanuts and Hagar the Horrible. Unfortunately–aside from being powerfully unfunny–these cartoons had way too much real estate to fill, and were drawn/written by people who had zero idea how to fill it.

So in these cartoons, all of the real action takes place in one corner, while the rest of the strip is devoted to unnecessary renderings of a sidewalk, or a kitchen countertop. Visually confusing, distracting, and completely devoid of humor–and the comics pages are full of this garbage these days. Again, any wonder why newspapers are dying?

Delonas belongs to this school of cartoonsmanship, times a thousand. Because he actually has far more space to fill than the average Far Side imitator. But rather than expand his ideas, he draws small, grimy figures and surrounds them with small, grimy details. Like decrepit buildings, crumbling asphalt, dying trees…

And rats. Guy loves to draw rats I would bet he has several copies of Willard on DVD in his house (both original and Crispin Glover editions).

Delonas was born way too late. He would have made a great contemporary of Hieronymous Bosch. Or he could have illustrated “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” But no, he gets to plague our age with his insane visions. Thanks, history!

Football, Politics Schmolitics

Useless Super Bowl Predictions: John Boehner

I wanted to get some Super Bowl predictions from football experts, but then I realized that  football experts tend to be horribly, horribly wrong most of the time. So instead, I decided to think beyond the usual expert parameters and ask some other types of people for their takes on the big game. Our next guest is Congressman John Boehner (R-OH), House minority leader.

boehner.jpgWho did Obama pick? The Steelers? Then I’m going with the Cards.

You guys are going with the Cards, right? I don’t wanna see no Republicans picking the Steelers or so help me, I’ll sic Rush Limbaugh on you! Don’t think I won’t!

Media Morons, Politics Schmolitics

Mike Francesa, Presidential Scholar

fran1.jpgMy New Year’s Resolution was to stop listening to WFAN, apart from Mets games and the occasional Schmooze. I’ve been tuning in to that station practically my whole life, and ramped up my listenership back in the days when I wrote a now-defunct sports blog.

But now WFAN just makes me angry. And not Dynamic Anger, which pisses you off so much it inspires to do bigger and better things. It pisses me off to hear so many ill-informed opinions and caveman sensibilities and thinly veiled racism.

And then on top of everything, they added Craig Carton to their morning program, who is made from the slats at the bottom of the barrel. The epitome of everything that is wrong and stupid and adolescent about radio.

Listening to WFAN now is the audio equivalent of finishing a huge bag of Cheetos all by yourself. You’ll get absolutely no nutrition from it and you’ll feel sick and wrong and ashamed afterwards. There’s nothing to be gained from the exercise except orange fingers.

Here’s the thing, though: I have this Pavlovian response whenever I go to the bathroom in my house. It stems from the baseball season: whenever I go to use the facilities, I flip on the radio on top of the toilet so I won’t miss any of whatever game I’m watching. Except that now it doesn’t matter if any game is on. I do it anyway.

I’ve been pretty good about curbing this impulse lately, but this Monday I wasn’t, and I heard about 20 seconds of Mike Francesa that infuriated me so much that I couldn’t even bring myself to write about them until today.

Francesa was talking about the inauguration, which was a big red flag right off the bat. Whenever Francesa talks about anything other than sports, batten down the hatches. It’s bad enough when he talks about music or movies. He loves to pretend he’s Paulina Kael, if Pauline Kael had completely middle-of-the-road taste in everything. “You know who’s a pretty good director? Steven Spielberg!”

But when politics enter the picture, oh lord. I caught his show on election day, just as I was leaving work, when it was slowly dawning on everyone that Obama was probably gonna win big time. You could hear how much this realization was killing him. It was so sweet, because in his voice you could hear the panicked thoughts of every Wall Street asshole and moneyed buffoon in the land. “Oh no, now I’m gonna take home only several million dollars a year instead of many millions! I might have to sell my third house!”

All he could get out was, “Hey, Obama ran a brilliant campaign, what can I say?” He said it in the same condescending way he begrudgingly hands out compliments to the Mets (granted, they rarely give him cause to do so).

If you do nothing for the next 4 years, Obama, thank you for that moment.

So day before the inaguration, the biggest one of our lifetimes, possibly the biggest ever, what is Francesa talking about? He’s complaining about all the inauguration balls and how much money they’re gonna cost. How it’s not right to be spending so much dough during this time of financial hardship. “Hey, I got nothing against him. He’s my president too!” he was quick to add.

You know, Mikey, your argument might track a bit better if your show wasn’t simulcast on the YES Network, the channel owned by the team that just spent $400 MILLION DOLLARS ON THREE PLAYERS.

I’m sure Francesa would counter with the fact that the Yankees are a private corporation. Well, they are and they aren’t. After all, they just had THE CHROME-PLATED BALLS TO BEG NEW YORK CITY FOR MORE
BONDS TO FINISH THEIR 1 BILLION DOLLAR MONUMENT TO THEMSELVES.

Now, to be fair, the Mets asked for (and received) extra bonds for their stadium, too. But they just didn’t spend almost half a billion dollars on players before doing so, then turn around and cry poverty to the city (even though, after Bernie Madoff, Fred Wilpon can probably cry poverty). They also don’t have a paid mouthpiece on their own network bitching about somebody else’s “misuse” of public funds.

I don’t recall Francesa saying word one about the Yankees feeding from
the public trough in such a brazen manner after unloading dump trucks
full of cash on free agents’ doorsteps. So don’t play like you’re all of a sudden concerned about wastes of public money, you fat mess.

I mean, what’s more gross a use of public moneys: celebrating the inauguration of a president, or making A.J. Burnett richer?