Complex Magazine Presents: Desus vs. Mero
Posted: January 29, 2014 Filed under: comedy Leave a comment
Q: What is the oldest joke in America?
A: it’s a person of one race imitating a person of another race.
Probably (after initial terror) Columbus guys back on the Pinta cracked each other up by “doing” Arawaks.
No doubt the top Arawak comedians could do killer imitations of Columbus-guys, which helped them forget the pain of smallpox etc.
I think through @chelseaperetti I started reading @thekidmero’s tweets. For a long time I did not follow him (he has tweeted upwards of 59,000 times) but I would look through his feed sometimes.
The Kid Mero lives in the Bronx. I think the only times I ever went to the Bronx were 1) to eat an Irish toastie at Mary’s Celtic Kitchen with Boyland or 2) to go to Yankee Stadium.
But apparently there are non-white areas of the Bronx.
The Kid Mero has a podcast with another guy from the Bronx called Desus. The podcast, “Complex Magazine Presents: Desus vs. Mero,” can be found for free on iTunes and “Skitcher” (??). It is hilarious. Both dudes are super funny.
One topic that comes up in episode 3 is the enthusiasm of white people for apples, also for cheese.
Here is another topic that comes up:
Anyway: recommended.
(photo of multi-cultural Irish step dancing troupe from the Bronx)
Silent movie.
Posted: January 28, 2014 Filed under: animals Leave a commentIt is called “Pasadena Bear Encounter.”
Himalayan Marmot
Posted: January 27, 2014 Filed under: animals Leave a comment
In an effort to juice my stats before this blog’s valuation next month by Standard & Poor’s, I’m getting into the cute animal game.
Simpler and better.
Posted: January 24, 2014 Filed under: America Leave a commentJohn Ehrlichman, from the doc “Our Nixon” (avail on Netflix Instant). I’d say this doc is “fascinating” but I’m already super interested in Nixon so please, be aware of my bias.
Following his release from prison, Ehrlichman held a number of jobs, first for a quality control firm, then writer, artist and commentator. Ehrlichman wrote several novels, including The Company, which served as the basis for the 1977 television miniseries Washington: Behind Closed Doors. He served as the executive vice-president of an Atlanta hazardous materials firm. In a 1981 interview, Ehrlichman referred to Nixon as “a very pathetic figure in American history.” His experiences in the Nixon administration were published in his 1982 book, Witness To Power. The book portrays Nixon in a very negative light, and is considered to be the culmination of his frustration at not being pardoned by Nixon prior to his own 1974 resignation. Shortly before his death, Ehrlichman teamed with best-selling novelist Tom Clancy to write, produce, and co-host a three-hour Watergate documentary, John Ehrlichman: In the Eye of the Storm.
(Idea occurred to me watching “Our Nixon”: JFK hired people who were extremely confident, raised in/part of “the establishment.” Nixon hired people who were extremely insecure, embittered and aggrieved with “the establishment.” Danger with both.)
Dustin Van Wechel, “Headstrong”
Posted: January 23, 2014 Filed under: painting, the American West, the California Condition 1 Comment
Reader “Matt M.” in La Jolla writes:
Dear Helytimes,
I know you’ve been accused of being “Headstrong” so I thought you might enjoy DVW’s image of the same name, which I saw on the Autry Museum’s Pinterest page.
Love the site!
– Matt M.
Right you are, Matt. Thanks for reading. That painting is oil on linen. Van Wechel is truly one of our finest living buffalo painters.
You can write to HelyTimes Mailbag at helphely at gmail, subject line “Mailbag.”
I don’t think this is a good name.
Posted: January 15, 2014 Filed under: the California Condition Leave a comment
Reading this Dana Goodyear article about valley fever:
“The impact of valley fever on its endemic populations is equal to the impact of polio or chicken pox before the vaccines,” John Galgiani, an infectious-disease physician who directs the Valley Fever Center for Excellence, at the University of Arizona in Tucson, says. “But chicken pox and polio were worldwide.”
Holy shit!
Posted: January 13, 2014 Filed under: Africa Leave a comment
Archaeologists Identify Tomb of Sobekhotep I!
Egyptologists have been pumped for this moment ever since the discovery of the Kahun Papyri.
That’s of course in the collection of Flinders Petrie.
He described Egypt as “a house on fire, so rapid was the destruction” and felt his duty to be that of a “salvage man, to get all I could, as quickly as possible and then, when I was 60, I would sit and write it all.”
And what happened to Flinders’ head, you wonder?
When he died in 1942, Petrie donated his head (and thus his brain) to the Royal College of Surgeons of London while his body was interred in the Protestant Cemetery on Mt. Zion. World War II was then at its height, and the head was delayed in transit. After being stored in a jar in the college basement, its label fell off and no one knew who the head belonged to.[10] It was identified however, and is now stored, but not displayed, at the Royal College of Surgeons of London.
Was Flinders related to Australia explorer Captain Matthew Flinders, you wonder? Yes, is the answer, he was his grandson.
Please please Wikipedia tell me Flinders was an unambiguous hero I can get behind without reservations:
Petrie remains a controversial figure for his pro-eugenics views and opinions on other social topics…
Petrie was a dedicated follower of eugenics, believing that there was no such thing as cultural or social innovation in human society, but rather that all social change is the result of biological change, such as migration and foreign conquest resulting in interbreeding. Petrie claimed that his “Dynastic Race”, in which he never ceased to believe, was a “fine” Caucasian race that entered Egypt from the south in latepredynastic times, conquered the “inferior” and “exhausted” “mulatto” race then inhabiting Egypt, and slowly introduced the finer Dynastic civilization as they interbred with the inferior indigenous people. Petrie, who was also affiliated with a variety of far right-wing groups and anti-democratic thought in England and was a dedicated believer in the superiority of the Northern peoples over the Latinate and Southern peoples, derided Budge’s belief that the ancient Egyptians were an African people with roots in eastern Africa as impossible and “unscientific”, as did his followers.
Oh well. I doubt Sobekhotep was a peach either.
“There’s gonna be a lotta days when you lay your guts on the line and come away empty-handed”
Posted: January 9, 2014 Filed under: advice Leave a commentGood advice.
(h/t HelyTimes correspondent “Rob C.” in Auburn)
Timeless Art?
Posted: January 8, 2014 Filed under: music Leave a commentIf you haven’t watched this in awhile, I think you will find it’s still good:
from Seinfeld’s Reddit AMA
Posted: January 6, 2014 Filed under: comedy Leave a comment
Die.
Or:
[–]HallucinoJER 232 points 11 hours ago*Hello Jerry, then again since we’re not friends (yet) I’ll call you Mr. Seinfeld.
When you were a kid, what was your ultimate “one day if I’m rich I will…” fantasy?
Did you fulfill it yet?
First of all, I love being called Mr. Seinfeld. In fact, all my children call me that. It’s funny that you should ask this, because this was something I loved to do as a kid with my friends was sit on my stoop and think “what would we do when we were rich” when we were kids in Long Island. And I remember thinking “The greatest thing you could do if you were rich would be to have a go-kart track.”
I don’t have one. I do have a long driveway in my house in Long Island, and sometimes I ride on it on a scooter. And that makes me feel like Richie Rich.
Richie Rich, that comic book, made me anxious. Just the whole thing was kind of weird, it brought out strange, uncomfortable emotions of envy, and you know, sadness. He had parents, but it was one of the most depraved comic books of all. I wonder if it still exists, it can’t possibly still exist.
Everly Brothers
Posted: January 4, 2014 Filed under: America Leave a comment
(tune in for the first forty seconds at least for a good lesson in evolutionary biology)
Helytimes 