Danny Doom’s Booze Cabinet

Shot glass courtesy of the Skoal Girls, who were giving out free samples of smokeless tobacco at the Horseshoe last week. Hot girls with godawful tins of wintergreen garbage. How can you say no to them?

Funny stuff. In NRO World, WFB is a hero. But who can you trust, the deceased conservative leader or Angelina Jolie? They tried to have it both ways, but as you can see by this correction (a daily occurrence over there), WFB was not a fan of the Iraq War OR the Surge. “The real culprit apparently was my own wishful thinking,” says John Miller, citing a common plague at NRO. They want to believe so badly, and yet…reality bites.

But no worries. Angelina Jolie is now what passes for validation of NRO’s wishful thinking. Oh, Hollywood movie stars, you are so insightful when you say the Right things!

I started out with Stella, cuz we got free tickets, but then when that ran out I switched, rather unwisely, to PBR. Because it was free. You can’t ask for a bigger drop than Stella to PBR, it’s like taking a sip of fine wine and then diving into a vat of Boone’s Farm.

We played a “secret show” last night, secret only because we didn’t really promote it because we have a real show tomorrow night. And it was a birthday party. The Hushdrops played before us and opened up with an epic “Tommy” Who blast that was truly awesome. We also had some Who in our set, the beautiful “Melancholia” off of “The Who Sell Out,” along with the Coca-Cola jingle that comes before it (I prefer Pepsi!).

It was lots of fun but yes, the brain feels a little unhappy. All that PBR. Christ, what a shitty beer! Damn you, PBR…damn you straight to hell!

William F. Buckley, conservative icon, has died.

“If you had a European prime minister who experienced what we’ve experienced it would be expected that he would retire or resign,” Buckley told CBS News. No “successor would reenunciate the words he used in his second inaugural address because they were too ambitious.”

- WFB, noting the failure of George W. Bush’s expansive, interventionist foreign policy

An interesting column by Eric Zorn today on Barack Obama’s middle name. As people who know me well could attest, I don’t like to live in the past and certainly do not like to relive high school. Which is why I find this whole thing so ridiculous, and yet par for the course when it comes to the right-wing smear jobs. Really, the kind of people who think that calling him by his middle name “Hussein” will somehow hurt his chances are exactly the kind of people who never got past the high school level of insults.

It’s like when someone calls Bill Clinton “BJ Clinton.” Huh, huh, ha, ha. Jefferson is his middle name, what’s the problem, dude? The bell just rang and you’re late for shop class, Beavis.

Anyone who has a problem with Obama’s middle name because it sounds too “Muslim-y” were not going to vote for him anyway. So let’s just leave these people in their little box and move on with it.

Watched the Kurt Cobain film “About a Son” a couple nights ago and it was alright, but for a while I was bored silly. As you may or may not know, the film is composed of audio tapes of Kurt speaking (from a series of interviews) set to images of the Northwest and places where he lived. There is no Nirvana music. There are only a few images of Kurt and his mates at the end of the movie. No footage or anything.

About a half hour in I was checking the time, wondering how long this was going to go. The music isn’t bad, but hearing Queen or Cheap Trick or even R.E.M. while Kurt talks is still not the same as if it were Nirvana. And the scenes of Washingtonians staring into the camera or water or leaves or whatever gets kinda boring.

But of course, it’s the second half that gets you. Really, it’s the end. I know the story of Kurt, I know the whole family and divorce and Aberdeen stuff, but it only really gets interesting when it becomes about Nirvana and the scene and Courtney and drugs. It’s heavy shit. And to hear him talk about killing himself–actually blowing his head off–is pretty chilling, considering that he eventually did just that.

I hope that they can one day put together live footage, actual interviews, and a non-Courtney spin into a Kurt Cobain film. That would be awesome. Until then, I still have the videotapes.

That Pakistan thing just won’t go away. Even Hillary is lying about it now:

I just believe that, you know, as Senator Obama said, yes, last summer, he basically threatened to bomb Pakistan, which I don’t think was a particularly wise position to take.

Obama’s response:

With respect to Pakistan, I never said I would bomb Pakistan. What I said was that if we have actionable intelligence against bin Laden or other key Al Qaida officials and we — and Pakistan is unwilling or unable to strike against them, we should. And just several days ago, in fact, this administration did exactly that and took out the third-ranking Al Qaida official. That is the position we should have taken in the first place. And President Musharraf is now indicating that he would generally be more cooperative in some of these efforts. We don’t know how the new legislature in Pakistan will respond. But the fact is, it was the right strategy.

You can’t get much clearer than that. And it’s the same thing he said the first time he said it. I know, I looked it up because I wanted to know what he was talking about the first time he said it. That’s how you find out the answers to things.

It’s funny, the folks who throw around the “empty suit” line are actually either just too disingenuous or ignorant to find out the truth, but Obama has laid it out very clearly. Not only does he speak eloquently, there is actual substance to the words.

I wonder how many times John McCain will attempt to use this, despite its inaccuracy. And forget the politics of it for a second, isn’t it so much smarter than actually waging a war against a country? Pakistan is “harboring” terrorists; by George Bush’s rule, we should be at war with them. But of course we are not. We instead did the right thing, for once. Too bad we had to wait until his final year for Bush to figure it out.

It’s sad that I point this out as another of Barack Obama’s qualifications for the highest office, but the past seven years have made it so:

So let me be perfectly clear: I have taught the Constitution, I understand the Constitution, and I will obey the Constitution when I am President of the United States.

Wow. Did you hear that? Children born in 1990, now old enough to vote, may not understand what this means, but let me assure you, it is extraordinary! Chris Dodd has endorsed Obama today, saying he is “ready to be president.” Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton is digging through old pictures, searching for divisive shoewear, ill-advised ethnic pride, or perhaps just a giant afro.

This is necessary today. Stare into the horizon and find a happy place.

Let’s see, I saw “Michael Clayton” and Tilda Swinton won for that. Uh, yep, that’s about it. I read the book by Cormac McCarthy that resulted in Best Picture “No Country for Old Men,” and, well, I have “Once” in my Netflix queue, along with a lot of other movies that haven’t been released yet.

So, there you have it. But I enjoyed the show. Jon Stewart was funny and Jack was cool as always and I’m glad the girl who wrote “Juno” won. We already knew the Coen Brothers were geniuses. And Paul Thomas Anderson too. So there it is, the most extensive Oscar coverage in town. Perhaps I should have drank through the show?

I think these are the last words on Mr. Nader. I don’t expect to waste any more time on this:

“He thought that there was no difference between Al Gore and George Bush, and eight years later I think people realize that Ralph did not know what he was talking about.”

- Barack Obama

Nader to discuss election plans? No no no no no no! We’ve been through this before, and we know how it ends.