WTF is going on in the White House

For healing the nation's divisions, I propose the next president should have a cage match between poets and opera singers.

Sounds kinda woke to me.

yeah I don't see this desecration as anomalous. We specialize in these things.

anyone can easily document scads of previous presidentially endorsed, violent, partisan, commercial activities at the white house. easter egg hunts for example.

I'm not trying to throw a fire blanket on what happened last night, but we ARE the birthplace of P.T. Barnum. What's Trump's done with these spectacles is coax out the inevitable.

The philistinism seems practically designed to resonate with clichés of imperial rot and decline. If we assume Trump isn't offering a deliberate meta-critique of American corruption, then I guess it's just that he is drawn to such expression by instinct, inherently understanding his place and time.

Anyway, the notion that you can "desecrate" a grounds and house built by enslaved labor is itself quite aptly American.

^^^ this

Agree with all the above but I still want an opera/cello smackdown. "Look out, Renée. Imma Yo-Yo MAUL your ass."

There was a Bluesky prompt yesterday: "Okay but what would YOUR totally gratuitous White House lawn event be, if YOU were the mad king of a dying superpower," and my response was "Morton Feldman's String Quartet No. 2 (hint: it's six hours long) but performed by Sunn O))) using the Wacken Open Air main stage speaker rig."

the real annoyance is that between that and the stupid “state fair” on the mall the center of the city is impossible to travel through or near

I shifted my wfh day to Monday in hopes that I'd avoid much of the clean-up traffic. Just crossing my fingers for tomorrow though.

I shifted my wfh day to Monday in hopes that I'd avoid much of the clean-up traffic. Just crossing my fingers for tomorrow though.

Simple enough take from Derek Guy related to opera-vs-wrestling, but it also makes sense:

IMO, hosting this MMA event at the WH is part of a larger project to rebrand the GOP as a populist party, shedding the Alex P Keaton stereotype it once carried. And in doing so, make them seem like the right party for working class people, even as they cut taxes for the rich & slash social services

eh i am not buying it especially from the dress up guy

didn't you need a Paramount Plus subscription to even watch this? how is that populist

Letting people vote for "wrestling people" or "cello players."

Thinking of Alex P. Keaton, Republicans of the 80s weren't salt-of-the-earth until Rush Limbaugh took over the shock-jock type and maybe Lee Atwater did something too.

After thoroughly cleansing the Kennedy Center withh sage smoke, new Center director Laurie Anderson will organize the first-ever presentation of the complete Robert Wilson "the CIVIL warS" cycle originally intended for the 1984 L.A. Olympic Games.

BREAKING: The Kennedy Center to be renamed The Kennedy Center in honor of former MTV VJ Kennedy.

As the old Caddyshack poster went, it's the snobs against the slobs.

The Kennedy Center should be renamed "HALL OF USA PEFORMANCE TIMES"

MAGA folks on X keep pointing to Teddy Roosevelt supposedly having boxing at White House as a historical justification. They also post homophobic justifications saying that since Biden had a pride event which they considered distasteful, this is ok. They never discuss the financial scam aspect of Trump's event yesterday.

As the old Caddyshack poster went, it's the snobs against the slobs.

A little hard to pin down though because Trump himself falls somewhere between Ted Knight and Rodney Dangerfield.

xp you know he was making money on this somehow

pretty much everyone who is attending this piece of shit is dead to me if they weren't already. same goes for world cup shit tbh

World Cup fans seem a bit less American to me

I don't really seen anything about this shit in the mainstream media... seems like a mellow dud. They didn't trigger this libtard

why anyone would come here from abroad is astounding to me, i guess they figure if they're not somali they won't be harassed by the gestapo, i guess we'll see because we still have dozens of ICE arrests every day but our cowardly media doesn't cover it so i guess it's not happening. i was listening to a podcast and an NPR ad came on like "the passion ... the emotion ... the world cup is here, don't miss a moment of our analysis" like stop trying to make the world cup a thing you fucking absolute fucks. the most corrupt organization on planet earth collaborating with the most corrupt person in america and we're supposed to believe it's "the history of two nations unfolding on the field" or some dumb shit like that. it's not neutral. go ahead and cheer for argentina or whatever if you want to but marketing this like it's some big celebratory meeting of the world's cultures is utter horse shit

sorry probably a better thread for this, and i'm angry posting, not great but yeah just had to get it out lol

why anyone would come here from abroad is astounding to me, i guess they figure

have you asked this of any of them

American failing to understand football shocker!

fwiw pretty sure fans from Curacao or Cape Verde or most countries in fact can't afford to go to this World Cup, what fans they have there will probably be from the diaspora.

My British Airways flight last Tuesday had plenty of Miami-bound footballers, including a family that handed out a bunch of Peronis before takeoff that they probably nicked from the lounge.

For a tiny second I read that as a bunch of Negronis and I was like, "how did they know?"

I was in Atlanta over the weekend and it was filling up with World Cup fans — from Spain especially, but from all over seemed like.

seersucker MC (Ye Mad Puffin) at 10:20 15 Jun 26

BREAKING: The Kennedy Center to be renamed The Kennedy Center in honor of former MTV VJ Kennedy.

Who has has only slightly better politics than Trump!

For a tiny second I read that as a bunch of Negronis and I was like, "how did they know?"

― seersucker MC (Ye Mad Puffin)

I am the last of the famous international playboys.

To ums - yes I gather she is on Fox, therefore safely off my radar screen in terms of awareness

Kennedy shouting "Nixon now!" at the Clintons and having a GOP elephant tattoo on her thigh are only two of the weirder details

Goo Goo Dolls "Name" is also about her

Weird that she was out as a Republican even back in her MTV days--usually that's something that emerging after your career is over.

During a discussion on Kennedy Saves the World in 2025, Kennedy listed Beastie Boys, No Doubt, Rocket from the Crypt, Drive Like Jehu, Olivelawn, and Pitchfork as her favorite rock bands.[53]

how/why the fuck does she know so much about SD rock bands?

I mean, Jehu yes ok, they sold maybe 5-10k records... but Olivelawn and Pitchfork??? Maybe a couple hundred people went to their shows in SD.

she worked for KROQ!!!!!

she seems like actual pals with Gwen, which makes sense

Yeah no, those bands didn't even get airplay on 91X (SD's version of KROQ), there's no way they got airplay up there.

KROQ was famously very late on grunge, opting to double down into their anglophilia/"ROQ of the 80s" archetype: The Cure, Depeche Mode, INXS, Peter Murphy.

Not that hard to know about Pitchfork if you're interested in Jehu in 2025... it's a link in the first paragraph of the Wikipedia page

What were your favorite bands in the MTV period? Who were the ones that you would die for?

Die for? Rocket from the Crypt, absolutely. The entire '90s San Diego punk rock scene, I think, is one of the most perfect eras in music.

Rocket from the Crypt was in San Diego, California, along with Drive Like Jehu, Olive Lawn, Pitchfork. They were amazing. I have a Rocket from the Crypt tattoo.

Oh, I'm sorry, I was thinking of Rocket From the Tombs. Like Cleveland…. Excuse me.

That's OK. Maybe that's where they took their name. But I have a Rocket from the Crypt tattoo. So in the '90s, if you had this tattoo, you could get into all their shows for free. And they were like, "We want MTV to play our music, so we would let you in for free anyway, hoping that you put in a good word with your bosses." But I didn't know that, so…

And I loved Mudhoney as well.

There you go.

And Rancid.

Yeah. Are you done?

And I guess we can think of things all night. I wasn't wild about Pearl Jam.

No? Why not? What didn't you like about it?

I felt that they were so pissy—like, "We don't want MTV. We don't want to do anything on MTV. We're so cool because we're in Seattle." And then I sold my house to Stone Gossard. Now I really like Pearl Jam.

he was also in Green River, if she wanted to sound cooler

I felt that they were so pissy—like, "We don't want MTV. We don't want to do anything on MTV. We're so cool because we're in Seattle." And then I sold my house to Stone Gossard. Now I really like Pearl Jam.

she's a republican you say