Speaker: Bobby Jindal, Gov. Louisiana (Repub.)
Good evening, Ladies and Gentlemen. [Applause].
I'll cut to the chase. Speak plainly. We got whupped out there last November. [Pause - no response] More whupp-oed than Jesus! [Pause]. Y'know, in 'The Passion of the Christ'!
[EVANGELICALS applause. The other person in the hall is silent.]
So - here we all are. The Republican party base. And to think those Dems said that we could hold our conventions in a phone booth! [Loud boos, jeers]. Well. I'd hardly call the Lynchburgh Pre-kindergarten Recreation and Rumpus Room a f***in' phone booth, would you?!
I'm sorry, mother.
I have been called upon to reconstruct the party's philosophy after - I'm speaking carefully here, y'know? - after that b****ard stole the f***in' election. I'm sorry - won the election. Are them words perty enough for you, Frank Rich?
In order to win the next election, we have to reaffirm our principles. Go back to what made this party great.
VOICE IN CROWD: Slavery? [confused murmurs]
JINDAL (flustered): Ah, no, no. Calm down.
VOICE IN CROWD: Gays out of the army!
JINDAL [amidst wild cheering]: I want, uh, real suggestions here. What are we gonna do next time? We can't just front up to the American people and say: 'No more gays!', can we? Folks? (Laughs nervously).
CROWD: No more gays! No more gays! No more gays!
JINDAL: Ah, yes - four more days! Four more days! I hear ya. Be quiet now. What do we like? Let's try and get a basic framework drawn up here. I'll draw a mind map. Republican Party: For. Anyone?
CROWD MEMBER: Playstation 3!
CROWD MEMBER: Twinkies!
CROWD MEMBER: Penthouse!
CROWD MEMBER: Han Solo!
CROWD MEMBER: Fartin' in my jacuzzi!
JINDAL: Right, right. Do we have any more, well, more policy-based suggestions? [Silence]. Ok, what don't we like? Reach deep into your conservative hearts - in the grand tradition of Edmund Burke and William F. Buckley Jr. - and tell me what we're AGAINST!
CROWD MEMBER: Hard words!
CROWD MEMBER: Weird food!
CROWD MEMBER: Spectacles!
CROWD MEMBER: Pussy little asian cars!
JINDAL (writing furiously): Hang on...pussy...little...cars...ok. We have, well, a lot of material here. A heckuva lot of material. We are gonna be a force to be reckoned with again. Hands up who want some Robin-Hood-equal-opportunity guy stealing our money while we're asleep? Huh?
CROWD MEMBER: You mean Jesus? [Hysterical whoops and screams. All hands go up.]
JINDAL: No - that's not who I meant, people! Hands up who like bad democrat man? [All hands go down].
That's the ticket. Those dems and their 'brains trust'. All that thinkin'! Well, we got a brains trust, too! Our very own brains trust! I am excited about the future of the Republican Party, people. Very excited. You'd better watch your back, Democrats!
CROWD MEMBER: I'm hungry.
Friday, February 27, 2009
Monday, February 23, 2009
Rock n' Roll Morals
SPEAKER: Good afternoon. I'm speaking live from Harvard University, where I'm attending a conference panel entitled 'Artistically-inclined Rock Singers Heinously Outraged at Liberal Explicitness' (ARSHOLE).
On the panel are ex-Poison singer Brett Michaels; ex-Soundgarden singer Chris Cornell; and current AC/DC singer Brian Johnson. Greetings, gentlemen.
ALL: Good afternoon.
SPEAKER: Let's start with you, Brett. How did ARSHOLE start?
BM: Well, we in Hair-metal, Hard Rock and related subgenres are tired of being willfully misinterpreted, and hence marginalised, by an increasingly coarse public.
SPEAKER: Care to elaborate?
BM: Certainly. I'm talking about the alarming tendency of the mainstream media to read unintended messages into our lyrics.
SPEAKER: Could you provide an example, Mr. Michaels?
BM: One of Poison's records, 'Open Up and Say...Ahhh!', was purposefully (I believe) characterised as a reference to an - in my view - deviant sexual practice.
SPEAKER: I see. And what was the record intended to be about?
BM: My desire to become a doctor.
SPEAKER: A...doctor?
BM: Yes.
SPEAKER: How long have you had this wish?
BM: For as long as I can remember. Since I was a child, definitely.
SPEAKER: You got waylaid, then?
BM: You could say that. I 'fell in with the wrong crowd', as the cliche goes - a crowd that seemed to think that injected illegal substances and cheating on one's current partner constituted a valid life plan.
SPEAKER: Did you find that your personality was altered as a result of the company you kept?
BM: Yes, regrettably. There is a certain post-performance demographic known as the 'groupie', for example...
SPEAKER: Please go on.
BM: ...a term which refers to a tradition where members of the band retreat to their trailers for meaningless sexual encounters with uncommitted women. After these experiences, I invariably felt cheapened. None of them wanted to discuss the music. There were times when thoughts of my poor wife almost prevented me from going on stage.
SPEAKER: Mr. Cornell, would you care to comment on this disturbing trend?
CC: I had a similar experience during the recording of our album 'Louder Than Love'. I spent several months crafting a song about the difficulties of empathy.
SPEAKER: What was the song called?
CC: 'Swallow My Pride'. As should be obvious from the title, it's about the desire of a caring partner to inhabit their loved one's subjective experiences.
SPEAKER: And the media attacked you?
CC: They distorted the song's meaning to suit their own perverted ends. [Transcriber's note: voice starts to quaver at this point]. I can't even say out loud what Kerrang! magazine claimed it was about. Sometimes I think Axl Rose was right about them. They misinterpreted him, too.
SPEAKER: And these misunderstandings dogged you throughout your career?
CC: Of course. There was a song called 'Mailman' on our album 'Superunknown', which contains the couplet:
'I know I'm heading for the bottom/
But I'm riding you all the way.'
That song was never the same for me after the critics got to it.
SPEAKER: What was 'Mailman' intended to be about?
CC: I would have thought it was obvious: it is a song about my appreciation for the good work done by the US Postal Service.
SPEAKER (Hesitant): So...how would you explain the 'riding' reference?
CC: That part is a dialogue between a postman and his van, spoken while riding down a hill. When I used to watch 'Postman Pat' as a child, I always thought that Pat looked happiest when riding down a hill in his smiling van. It's a love song, I guess.
SPEAKER: Thank you. Finally, Mr. Johnson: You believe that your quartet has been especially hard done by?
BJ: Without a doubt.
SPEAKER: Ok. I'll read out several of your song titles, and you can tell the audience what the actual - as distinct from the perceived - subject matter is.
BJ: I'd be glad to.
SPEAKER: Let's begin. 'Givin' the Dog a Bone'?
BJ: That's about my toy poodle, Latifah.
SPEAKER: 'Big Balls'?
BJ: That's about my ten-pin bowling career.
SPEAKER: 'Sink the Pink'?
BJ: That's about my hobby - billiards.
SPEAKER: 'Let me Put My Love Into You'?
BJ: That's about sharing cupboard space after getting married. It's a difficult issue.
SPEAKER: 'Cover You in Oil'?
BJ: I like to cook roast chicken. It's self-explanatory.
SPEAKER: Thank you, Mr. Johnson. May I ask you all what you're working on at the moment?
BM: I'm writing a concept album about the urgent need to reform the American Medical Association.
SPEAKER: Do you have a title?
BM: 'Spreadeagled'. That's a reference, of course, to the American Eagle - standing in for the country as a whole - and how thinly its resources are currently spread due to lack of healthcare reform.
SPEAKER: Mr. Cornell?
CC: I'm trying to repair the damage done by the previous reaction to my work, by recording a rock opera about the doomed love between a horse and a unicorn.
SPEAKER: What is this album called?
CC: Its working title is 'Impaled on my Massive Horn'. I think that brings the pathos of the subject through quite well.
SPEAKER: And you, Mr. Johnson?
BJ: AC/DC are recording a new single especially for ARSHOLE.
SPEAKER: Entitled...?
BJ: 'Tits Tits Tits'.
SPEAKER: What is this one about?
BJ: The joys of ornithology.
On the panel are ex-Poison singer Brett Michaels; ex-Soundgarden singer Chris Cornell; and current AC/DC singer Brian Johnson. Greetings, gentlemen.
ALL: Good afternoon.
SPEAKER: Let's start with you, Brett. How did ARSHOLE start?
BM: Well, we in Hair-metal, Hard Rock and related subgenres are tired of being willfully misinterpreted, and hence marginalised, by an increasingly coarse public.
SPEAKER: Care to elaborate?
BM: Certainly. I'm talking about the alarming tendency of the mainstream media to read unintended messages into our lyrics.
SPEAKER: Could you provide an example, Mr. Michaels?
BM: One of Poison's records, 'Open Up and Say...Ahhh!', was purposefully (I believe) characterised as a reference to an - in my view - deviant sexual practice.
SPEAKER: I see. And what was the record intended to be about?
BM: My desire to become a doctor.
SPEAKER: A...doctor?
BM: Yes.
SPEAKER: How long have you had this wish?
BM: For as long as I can remember. Since I was a child, definitely.
SPEAKER: You got waylaid, then?
BM: You could say that. I 'fell in with the wrong crowd', as the cliche goes - a crowd that seemed to think that injected illegal substances and cheating on one's current partner constituted a valid life plan.
SPEAKER: Did you find that your personality was altered as a result of the company you kept?
BM: Yes, regrettably. There is a certain post-performance demographic known as the 'groupie', for example...
SPEAKER: Please go on.
BM: ...a term which refers to a tradition where members of the band retreat to their trailers for meaningless sexual encounters with uncommitted women. After these experiences, I invariably felt cheapened. None of them wanted to discuss the music. There were times when thoughts of my poor wife almost prevented me from going on stage.
SPEAKER: Mr. Cornell, would you care to comment on this disturbing trend?
CC: I had a similar experience during the recording of our album 'Louder Than Love'. I spent several months crafting a song about the difficulties of empathy.
SPEAKER: What was the song called?
CC: 'Swallow My Pride'. As should be obvious from the title, it's about the desire of a caring partner to inhabit their loved one's subjective experiences.
SPEAKER: And the media attacked you?
CC: They distorted the song's meaning to suit their own perverted ends. [Transcriber's note: voice starts to quaver at this point]. I can't even say out loud what Kerrang! magazine claimed it was about. Sometimes I think Axl Rose was right about them. They misinterpreted him, too.
SPEAKER: And these misunderstandings dogged you throughout your career?
CC: Of course. There was a song called 'Mailman' on our album 'Superunknown', which contains the couplet:
'I know I'm heading for the bottom/
But I'm riding you all the way.'
That song was never the same for me after the critics got to it.
SPEAKER: What was 'Mailman' intended to be about?
CC: I would have thought it was obvious: it is a song about my appreciation for the good work done by the US Postal Service.
SPEAKER (Hesitant): So...how would you explain the 'riding' reference?
CC: That part is a dialogue between a postman and his van, spoken while riding down a hill. When I used to watch 'Postman Pat' as a child, I always thought that Pat looked happiest when riding down a hill in his smiling van. It's a love song, I guess.
SPEAKER: Thank you. Finally, Mr. Johnson: You believe that your quartet has been especially hard done by?
BJ: Without a doubt.
SPEAKER: Ok. I'll read out several of your song titles, and you can tell the audience what the actual - as distinct from the perceived - subject matter is.
BJ: I'd be glad to.
SPEAKER: Let's begin. 'Givin' the Dog a Bone'?
BJ: That's about my toy poodle, Latifah.
SPEAKER: 'Big Balls'?
BJ: That's about my ten-pin bowling career.
SPEAKER: 'Sink the Pink'?
BJ: That's about my hobby - billiards.
SPEAKER: 'Let me Put My Love Into You'?
BJ: That's about sharing cupboard space after getting married. It's a difficult issue.
SPEAKER: 'Cover You in Oil'?
BJ: I like to cook roast chicken. It's self-explanatory.
SPEAKER: Thank you, Mr. Johnson. May I ask you all what you're working on at the moment?
BM: I'm writing a concept album about the urgent need to reform the American Medical Association.
SPEAKER: Do you have a title?
BM: 'Spreadeagled'. That's a reference, of course, to the American Eagle - standing in for the country as a whole - and how thinly its resources are currently spread due to lack of healthcare reform.
SPEAKER: Mr. Cornell?
CC: I'm trying to repair the damage done by the previous reaction to my work, by recording a rock opera about the doomed love between a horse and a unicorn.
SPEAKER: What is this album called?
CC: Its working title is 'Impaled on my Massive Horn'. I think that brings the pathos of the subject through quite well.
SPEAKER: And you, Mr. Johnson?
BJ: AC/DC are recording a new single especially for ARSHOLE.
SPEAKER: Entitled...?
BJ: 'Tits Tits Tits'.
SPEAKER: What is this one about?
BJ: The joys of ornithology.
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