“That’s an interesting act. What do you call it?
November 18, 2020 4:28 PM   Subscribe

Act I (via McSweeny's. May be not safe for work.) posted by a non mouse, a cow herd (16 comments total) 16 users marked this as a favorite
 
I had forgotten the Mooch’s most memorable quote about Steve Bannon, and I feel embarrassed.
posted by Going To Maine at 4:36 PM on November 18, 2020 [1 favorite]


The man extends jazz hands.

"The worst four years of my life!"
posted by dannyboybell at 4:53 PM on November 18, 2020 [5 favorites]


I had forgotten the Mooch’s most memorable quote about Steve Bannon, and I feel embarrassed.

In any other administration, it would have been in the list of the Ten Most WTF Moments.

In this one, it has been crowded out of the top 1000.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 5:14 PM on November 18, 2020 [6 favorites]


A ​​naked guy with a Nixon tattoo on his back

Weird how even this total piece of shit has been eclipsed by recent fuckery. Which is one of the dangers of the whole thing. He's still out there, pardoned.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 5:18 PM on November 18, 2020 [9 favorites]


I deeply appreciate these and I can't believe I missed the first one when it was published.
posted by panhopticon at 5:23 PM on November 18, 2020 [1 favorite]


...and yet, reality is even more grotesque and offensive than The Aristocrats.
posted by Big Al 8000 at 5:51 PM on November 18, 2020 [7 favorites]


It is deeply disturbing that I believe I got every reference in both of those.

I'm going to go watch happy animal videos now.
posted by bcd at 5:52 PM on November 18, 2020 [10 favorites]


The man extends jazz hands.

“The Republicans!”
posted by snofoam at 6:08 PM on November 18, 2020 [22 favorites]


I must be getting old. Just didn’t find this funny after four miserable years of “in real life” Aristocratics
posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 6:43 PM on November 18, 2020 [11 favorites]


It’s like Henry Miller wrote this. Crude and violent but I couldn’t stop reading.
posted by waving at 8:24 PM on November 18, 2020


waving: "It’s like Henry Miller wrote this. Crude and violent but I couldn’t stop reading."

Or Henry Rollins.
posted by chavenet at 8:33 AM on November 19, 2020


This doesn't really land for me. I realize it is not supposed to 'land' in any comedic sense, but emotionally as a northern neighbour to the US I know how I feel and I can't begin to imagine how it feels to be living there. The past four years hardly seem real.. I will never forget the absurdity of seeing an older man show up to a public space 4 years ago, wearing a MAGA hat.. this is rural Canada.. the man in question would have been a prominent fund-raiser and mover/shaker for helping the 40+ years of conservative government get elected in my province. Zip to two days ago, sitting with a friend and she is describing someone I know quite well and volunteer with, expressing how Trump has it right. There is something sick about us, maybe it is the fear of what is coming or the perceived fear, but people are open to hateful messages and a good percentage are grabbing onto absolute bullshit like it's a life preserver. The worst of us are emboldened by this stuff, we flex and preen within it. Then there are the abettors, the ones who should know better and I guess they're lost. This McSweeney's piece is entirely predictable and there's nothing wrong with it, I just wonder why it isn't landing for me. The reality is pretty bad and any horrors presented in satire or fiction can't really budge the needle anymore.
posted by elkevelvet at 8:41 AM on November 19, 2020


I'm sure there's a term for a violent, hideous satire so grotesque that it's difficult to get through but also difficult to look away from because it captures, in a darkly cathartic way, how it feels to be subjected to something so violent, hideous, and grotesque in life. That's what this was for me.
posted by treepour at 11:49 AM on November 19, 2020 [1 favorite]


If you read this as satire maybe it didn't go far enough.
posted by tmt at 1:11 PM on November 19, 2020 [1 favorite]


I laughed but it was a bitter dark laugh. I'll never be able to hear this joke format again after "250,000 corpses are thrown on the stage". McSweeney's has won by telling the grotesque truth.
posted by harriet vane at 11:07 PM on November 20, 2020 [2 favorites]


I am re-reading these and am weeping. “250K corpses are thrown onto the stage." Delivered in as offhand of a way as we've treated those afflicted by covid because they're poor and/or old. Holy freaking moly. I think these are incredibly powerful pieces of writing and they have made a mess of me.
posted by treepour at 11:21 PM on November 22, 2020


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