Grit In The Lobes

Have I mentioned how much I hate politics? Fucking fucking loathe that shit. I'm not talking about grassroots attempts to reclaim what's left for us proles, doomed and compromised as those efforts generally are. I'm referring to the hourly kabuki bullshit crammed down our bleeding throats, photo ops and 6th Grade lectures about "civic" affairs, the wonderment of it, the sacred mystery.

It's bad enough when our owners and their stenographers do this; it's even worse when bloggers fart out the same stench, as if they're in "the know" or wise to the game. And man, am I sick of looking at Barack Obama. Whatever charm he possessed evaporated long ago, at least to my bloodshot eyes. Anybody who wants to be president is fucked in the head on some level. But then who the hell am I? Who elected my ass to anything?

Ahhh. Okay. My spiked coffee has finally kicked in, and I'm feeling a bit better now. A little less anxious (that'll come later with the afternoon delights). Still, I want to ask all of you: What keeps bringing you to this site? Seriously. Perhaps I'm going through one of my periodic fuck-it-all moods, where there are snakes on everything, and I see through the floor and into the flesh, my forays into public limited and behind shades and hat, walking as if I expect to get hit any second. Maybe that's my problem. But I'm genuinely curious what ya'll git outta thiz heah thang.

While you're pondering that heavy question, I'd like to share this SNL sketch from 1984. I hadn't seen this in a while, but I remember it well. Not because of the comedy heavyweight gathering of Martin Short, Billy Crystal, Christopher Guest, and Eddie Murphy (who was hosting that week). That was SNL's celebrity year, one of its best, so these guys were bringing it every show.

No, what I recall about this sketch was my surprise to see Larry David as an extra in the back, near the door. This was two years after "Fridays" ended, a show that at one point had bigger ratings than SNL, where David was a major player. (Note the brief "Fridays" reunion with Rich Hall, the waiter, who also worked on that show.) Writing for SNL that year was in many ways a demotion for David. Add to that his getting only one sketch on the air the entire season, and you see the unforgiving cruelty of comedy.

I hear that Larry David's doing better these days. Good for him.