OHpleaseohplease let riverchuckie pick up on this.

I haz no fotoshop skillz :-( but lipstick puppy is hilarious.

Eh, sean old buddy, how bout a NSfW warning next time?

This looks like a cool series, but I’m not sure I get the “hook.” Are they all marionettes like “The Thunderbirds”? Or, when the Patriarchy or “Intimate Terrorism” rear their heads over the skies of Alaska, do all these gals don flats and summer-smocks and leap into the air to form a single, giant robot VictimOfMisogynyTron?

Wake me up when Manga Video releases the anime version. Seriously, I WOULD have voted for a big-eyed Hillary in a plaid skirt and a sailor-blouse who fights lecherous alien-demons with phallic tentacles. She just didn’t reach out to her natural base of hip guys who dig “All Purpose Cultural Cat Girl Nuku-Nuku.”

How about Castration Comix?

There was a lot of talk about castration over at PUMA PAC the other day. Seems that they do it in Poland, so why not here?

I want to see an issue devoted to Sherri Johnston.

“From the moment her mom shat her out in the backseat of a car on cinderblocks parked in front of the family double-wide estate, to the pride with which her mug-shot was plastered on TV screens around the world…”

I would just caution Obama and his team to be careful how they handle this crisis.  Those French bakers had no idea that storming the Bastille would turn into a rout. It’s just that irresistable force met immovable object and something had to give.  It’s the nature of Change!™  and there are more serfs than there are lords.

I’m really glad Riverdaughter posted this. This is something I’ve been wanting to talk about for months, this “storming of the Bastille.”

I’ve mentioned in several places that I directed a production of Marat/Sade back in 2000 in Los Angeles. I discussed it briefly in my interview last night but one thing I’ve been wanting to point out and haven’t done so until now is how much Darragh Murphy and Riverdaughter remind me of the character of Marat, who long after the storming of the Bastille (which was the crowning achievement and golden moment of Marat’s life), and well after he’d contracted a horrible skin disease which kept him bathtub-ridden, Marat continued to frantically write Revolutionary essay after Revolutionary essay in a clear attempt to make that golden moment live forever. Rather than find the courage to take the next constructive step forward, Marat continued to fan the flames of outrage amongst his readers, right up to the end, when Charlotte Corday gave him the blade.

This parallel between Marat and Darragh Murphy has been eating at me for some time now. Any thoughts on this?

@Brad—God, I was sorely tempted to blog that exchange, where the Vault of Victims concluded that men were insufficiently subject to invasive and painful gender-specific medical procedures.

According to Team Vajajay, a male God designed women’s naughty bits expressly so that they would be vulnerable to hideous diseases, and subjected to intentionally torturous diagnostic techniques devised by sadistic male physicians.

The girls spent HOURS swapping weird fantasias about machines that would hydraulically pancake penises and scrotums in mammogram fashion. It seemed like a pointless distraction from the pointless distraction of beatifying Alice Paul…and thus, wonderfully harmless.

@Brad—Great analogy! The present direction of all the PUMA blogs does seem to be free-form, directionless, unactionable outrage…solely for the purpose of sustaining cohesion and revenues.

HTP—Noted, though I thought it was at least as SfW as Rumproast.  No naughty words, and all her naughty bits were safely, if barely, covered.  In any case, let me just say in a very SfW way that Tila Tequila really must be one of the founding members of Fembots for Justice.

According to Team Vajajay, a male God designed women’s naughty bits expressly so that they would be vulnerable to hideous diseases, and subjected to intentionally torturous diagnostic techniques devised by sadistic male physicians.

So they’re going to form a giant PUMAmid by standing on each other’s shoulders and storm the gates of heaven!!1

Wow. I’ve met a lot of radicals (and annoyed more than my fair share) but I’ve never met any who thought God hated them. Usually it’s the other way around.

@HTP—Good point, but PUMAs aren’t radicals. They’re just unhappy people who’ve had bad relationships, supported weak candidates, and proven to be exquisitely inept at influencing the public, the media or the government.

They have no leaders, no agenda, no methodology, no recognition and no popular base…and their concept of “political action” is to write snarky letters to strangers, then brag to one another about how snarky their letters were.

I mean, Christ, they’re refighting the 40-year-old battle of the Equal Rights Amendment, which subsequent legislation long ago rendered irrelevant and moot. They’re agitating for Alice Paul to receive a Medal of Honor, which will have the real-world net-effect of producing a slam-bang commemorative postage stamp. Opaa!

If Lenin and Trotsky had spent all day, every day Twittering each other about the latest Tsar Nicholas joke and the availability of Wisconsin curd cheese, they’d have been the original PUMAs…and Russia would still be a monarchy.

Post-Hillary and post-election, they’ve got nothin’. And as we all correctly guessed, they’ve emerged from their Obama-era identity crisis reduced to boosting the agenda that Obama is Bad, Men Are Beasts and American Women are (Symbolically) as Oppressed as Muslim Stoning Victims. PUMA roars…and a bored world shrugs.

Anyway, I know you already know that, but I feel compelled at times to restate the obvious:

PUMAs are NOT radicals. They’re a 12-step program for the terminally ignored, and a wildlife preserve for endangered egos.

Oh, and—course—Michelle Obama is NOT a successful professional woman, and does NOT deserve her own “Female Force” video.

And neither does that darn Oblowme-boosting Caroline Kennedy.

Women aren’t women just because they’re born that way. Women are whatever Darragh says a “woman” is, in today’s installment of the VictimPAC blog.

I neither have PhotoShop nor any idea how to use it.  I tried to download it once but backed off when I was instructed to select either the $700 or the $900 version.  I mean as much as I’d like to snark around with pics of Sarah Palin, that seemed like a lot.  Is it really that expensive or is there a $39.99 version available somewhere?

Brad - I think your analogy is almost perfect but doesn’t take into account the sort of rejected, female scorned aspect of the PUMAs towards Obama.  I remember after the primaries a lot of the PUMAs and almost PUMAs were blogging that Obama needed to APOLOGIZE TO THEM and WOO THEM and the bastard wouldn’t. (Srsly, why should he?)  That anger at his “rejection” seems to have gotten very internalized with a lot of them (*cough* Riverdaughter *cough*)

I remember after the primaries a lot of the PUMAs and almost PUMAs were blogging that Obama needed to APOLOGIZE TO THEM and WOO THEM and the bastard wouldn’t.

marindenver -

Well, as I see it, demanding an apology from Obama is merely a pretext for generating yet more outrage when said apology fails to materialize. Thus, those inflamed passions (the Bastille moment) are preserved. Of course, I don’t claim to be the Oracle of Delphi, but this analogy, however imperfect it may be, has really been in my head for a long time.

This passage from the opening song in Marat/Sade may help illuminate what I’m getting at here:

Four years after we started fighting
Marat keeps on with his writing
Four years after the Bastille fell
He still recalls the old battle yell
Down with all of the ruling class
Throw all the generals out on their arse
Good old Marat by your side we’ll stand or fall
You’re the only one that we can trust at all
Four years he fought and he fought unafraid
Sniffing down traitors by traitors betrayed
Marat in the courtroom Marat underground
Sometimes the otter and sometimes the hound
Fighting all the gentry and fighting every priest
Businessman the bourgeois the military beast
Marat always ready to stifle every scheme
of the sons of the arse licking dying regime
We’ve got new generals our leaders are new
They sit and they argue and all that they do
Is sell their own colleagues and ride upon their backs
And jail them and break them and give them all the axe
Screaming in language that no one understands
Of the rights that we grabbed with our own bleeding hands
When we wiped out the bosses and stormed through the wall
Of the prison they told us would outlast us all
Marat we’re poor
And the poor stay poor
Marat don’t make
Us wait anymore
We want our rights and we don’t care how
We want our revolution now

Stunning stuff, immortal stuff. The kind of dramatic art that continues to illuminate human conduct for the ages.

OT - but this is news

Brad, Marat would let nothing be said against the King’s lawyer, even while advocating for guillotining His Majesty (This I got from, pulling up Wikipedia, I confess—just like certain clownish dolts). That is not a level of nuance I expect Murphy to reach.

I don’t see so much Marat in Murphy as I do Madame DeFarge. Except that DeFarge wasn’t knitting her dissatisfaction over an imagined slight.

And Murphy’s reign of terror would no doubt employ a much smaller, specialized guillotine.

And Murphy’s reign of terror would no doubt employ a much smaller, specialized guillotine.

Now that’s a finish.  Bravo!

This I got from, pulling up Wikipedia, I confess—just like certain clownish dolts

Yet unlike Bozo the Lawyer, you don’t just post the Wiki article without comment, expecting the magnitude of the gesture alone to stun me into silent submission.

My G*d, do I ever detest that ham-fisted cretin myiq2xu!

There should be some MyIQ2-worthy equivalent to the much-beloved twatwaffle. Combining genitalia and breakfast foods is a delicate art.  Schvantzkrumpet?

dickbisquit?

vergecroissant?
cockbacon?
penispancake

ok, I’ll stop now.

vergecroissant?
cockbacon?
penispancake

And you condescend to have me as a facebook friend? I’m honored, dear lady.

Might I also suggest dingusdumpling? It’s got a nice Mid-Western thing happening, no?

Mrs. Polly -

Sorry, dumpling is not a breakfast food. I withdraw.

How about dingusdonut?

Cocktart?
Egg McMuff?
Eggs Benedick?

Crankfritter?

Well, you beat me to Cock-Tart, so I’m left with Count Cockula.

Sorry. On a deadline. I’d like to devote my full cosmic life-force to this, but Mars needs money.

Combining genitalia and breakfast foods is a delicate art.

Whereas combining hot liquid and a computer monitor is not.

Curse my vivid imagination!

Prongfiterole and Schlongflakes. Also.

Testipuffs? Honeyputz Crunch? Finnan Hadcock?

Darragh’s Daughters of the Dusty Womb are now toying with a new euphemism for the just, proper and necessary sexual mutilation of men. The word is “prunation.”

In honor of which, I would like to unveil several new and daring medical procedures I believe should be performed on all congenital victim/loser/man-haters:

—Thermo-electric labial fusion
—High-pressure pneumatic uterine back-filling
—Ultrasonic snatch-suturing
—Outpatient clitoral dermabrasion
—Intrusive therapeutic vaginal enlargement
—Diagnostic breast microwave excitation

In MY world, PUMAs would be BEGGING for the sweet release of a mammogram.

—Intrusive therapeutic vaginal enlargement

aka pregnancy

@gimmeabreak—Not when you use a sterile shoe-stretcher.

I thought “prunation” was the cumulative effect of years of pursing one’s lips. Eventually, the mouth resembles a cat’s bum.

Testipuffs? Honeyputz Crunch? Finnan Hadcock?

Yikes! Enough! Enough! And gimmieabreak’s cockbacon is going to give me nightmares, I’m sure!

Darragh’s Daughters of the Dusty Womb are now toying with a new euphemism for the just, proper and necessary sexual mutilation of men. The word is “prunation.”

This reminds me of PUMA PAC’s hilarious “thinning of the herd” thread about war’s positive effect of killing off men. I posted that I didn’t think it was very funny, seeing as how my own son was poised to go to Afghanistan. Darragh corrected me, assuring me that it was funny, and that one of her daughters intended to attend a military academy.

I’m still mulling that one over.

Count Cockula’s got my vote! I mean, considering that we ARE applying the name to miq2xu!

@Brad Mays—I wouldn’t mull it overmuch. The death of men is funny, and serves a social purpose.

...which makes me wonder why we never hear about Mr. Darragh, or how he feels about having a wife who spends her entire life online in another room, rubbing her hands and cackling at the thought of running a guy’s nuts through a paper shredder.

In the words of Sam Kinison: “If I was a man, your head would be in a bowling bag.”

Whangers and mash.

At Sadly No, Jeff Goldstein’s nom de dick is “Count Cockula,” referring to his penchant for threatening to cock slap people.

@shawn214—Damn. I should have known that was too easy to be original.

HTP, if we’re going to branch out into brunch items, I’m going to have to go with Hoppin’John Thomas.

I should have known that was too easy to be original.

Damnation! Something equally infantile must be devised.

@Brad Mays—“Jejune” comes easily for me. I may have to stretch somewhat for “infantile.” ;->

Has anyone visited the much-ballyhooed Pumasphere site lately?

Someone really needs to get over there, fluff the links and dust under the HTML.

It’s like the Museum of Modern Hubris.

Strange, other than Pumapac? I haven’t been there much lately—-allergies.

I went and looked at PUMAPAC, and now I have nasty red welts and labored breathing. It was somewhere between “prunation” and the petition to impeach Obama that I started feeling funny.

Don’t anybody go there without ampules of epinephrine.

Brad, I would have loved to see your production of Marat/Sade.  I have fond memories of Judy Collins’ recording of a medley of tunes, and the film version featuring Glenda Jackson as Charlotte Corday…

And yes, there’s something Pumaesque about the idea of an entertaiment staged by the inmates of an asylum shrieking and humping each other into a frenzy for the amusement of the nobility.

****PUMA BLOG-MONITORING ALERT****

Target: Brad Mays

Observer: FLBarbera, PUMApac’s chief flogger of “Intimate Terrorism,” but otherwise nondescript, mostly illiterate, ho-hum commenter exhibiting typical PUMA “born-victim” traits

Threat Level: Zero (Duh)

Transcript:

FLBarbara 03.12.09 at 11:26 pm

  Brad Mays

  I know your lurking because I read your comments on another blog.

  Why don’t you repeat here what you said about Pumas and Murphy?
  Talking VAJAYJAYS?

****END ALERT****

****PUMA BLOG-MONITORING ALERT****

Target: Brad Mays

Observer: FLBarbara, persistently pathetic self-pitying mush-brain. Was angry, then ceased being angry. Speculation: Will be angry again soon.

Threat Level: Laughable

Transcript:

FLBarbara 03.12.09 at 11:41 pm

  Sorry Dances

  He just upset the crap out of me. He comes here and makes nicey nice and then says terrible untrue and distorted things about Murphy and all of us.
  Just wanted to call him out on it because I was so angry. I mean angry
  I am calm now so I am sorry

****WARNING: POTENTIAL DANCESWITHPUMAS EVENT DETECTED****

****END ALERT****

HTP—

Why don’t you repeat here what you said about Pumas and Murphy?

Which would make it through moderation… how?

He just upset the crap out of me.

And now she needs a new chair.

Seriously, they’re barely even worth a laugh anymore.  Someone needs to do something to focus their impotent rage, a Fresnel lens of frantic fappery.  Any readers in Little Rock who can put up a giant diorama of Obama threatening a helpless white woman?

Strange, after his interview with the First Amendment folks on Blogtalk Radio, Brad will have to stay on permanent Orange Pantsuit Alert.

I went to Pumasphere, and it was a fearsome orange, but as you said, largely inert. Brad’s still top 0’ the links!

****PUMA BLOG-MONITORING ALERT****

Target: Brad Mays

Observer: BillieJo, soon-to-be-unemployed abuser of UC Berkeley fax privileges and office equipment

Threat Level: Negligible

Transcript:

BillieJo 03.13.09 at 12:10 am

  FLBarbara

  Brad Mays
  ———–
  Please send the link, I want to know.

****END ALERT****

@Mrs. Polly—Indeed, ‘tis a forlorn and dreary site—and, like all things PUMA, it is a marvel of aspiration eclipsing execution.

@Brad Mays—My sincere apologies that you are taking heat because I typed “Team Vajajay.” You have enough grief, without being saddled for my transgressions.

“Saddled for,” “saddled with”—feh.

Sorry my albatross has been hung on your neck.

“Aspiration eclipsing execution.” Props to you for that elegant distillation of the PUMAs. It’s far more gracefuller than they deserve!

Brad left the link to his interview around here somewhere yesterday. It’s a good ninety minutes long, but worth it simply to hear so many of our suppositions about what was going on confirmed. Also to hear the poor man completely lose his head at long last and hurl back some of the abuse he received.

“Fresnel lens of frantic fappery” also has quite a ring to it.

There should be some MyIQ2-worthy equivalent to the much-beloved twatwaffle.

Somewhat late to the party here, but I tentatively offer

all-day dickfest

I may need to ask Kevin to rephrase this post at some point.

all-day dickfest

YAFB, CPAC was last week. But BLTN!

BLTN

Bacon, lettuce, tomato, and nitwits?

Brad left the link to his interview around here somewhere yesterday. It’s a good ninety minutes long, but worth it simply to hear so many of our suppositions about what was going on confirmed.

I want you all to know (and I include any PUMA who might be happening upon this comment) that none of what I said in last night’s interview was planned. I felt unqualified to talk about the First Amendment, which was the main topic for the evening, but offered instead to discuss censorship. I just gritted my teeth and went with it. And as far as posting on the PUMA PAC site, forget it. Long before I felt at odds with PUMA, I was hammered pretty much every time I went in there. Rumproast is the only site that’s treated me with consistent courtesy, even when I object to some of the comments made about PUMA.

Here again is the link to last night’s interview:

Albatross!

Well, um, what flavor is it?

It’s bleedin’ albatross flavor!

Bacon, lettuce, tomato, and nitwits?

Boner, lodgepole, tonker & nads??

even when I object to some of the comments made about PUMA.

You fucking asshole! That’s it, you’re banned! To spammy with you!

[...]

Heh. Sorry, just wanted to feel the power. To be honest, no leg tingles.

At Sadly No, Jeff Goldstein’s nom de dick is “Count Cockula,” referring to his penchant for threatening to cock slap people.

Yeah, I faintly recall reading something about that…

Sorry, just wanted to feel the power. To be honest, no leg tingles.

Careful, Kevin K. When you stare into the clown’s eyes, the clown’s eyes stare back at you.

Heh. Sorry, just wanted to feel the power.

It’s probably been observed here before, but never trust a blog where, in order to post a comment, you have to click a button labelled “Submit.”

Brad, I’m listening to the interview.  You sound frustrated and hurt.  Glad, though, that you shine some light on the censorship on PUMA blogs.

gimmieabreak -

Thanks for taking the time to listen.

When you stare into the clown’s eyes, the clown’s eyes stare back at you.

I give up.  Boz Scaggs?

I give up.  Boz Scaggs?

Do not mock me, sir!

kat in your hat, PumaPAC’s resident Dorothy Parker, doesn’t like what she reads here…and responds with a withering, gymnastic deconstruction of RumpRoast, Marat/Sade and the intellectual emptiness of Haeckel’s assertion that “ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny”:

You people SUCK. Understand? You are “the people who suck.” You are “the ones” all decent and cool people say SUCK.

Truly, a maestro at work, a veritable Paganini of “suck.” Bathe her, and bring her to my tent.

You are “the ones” all decent and cool people say SUCK.

Actually, no, Kat, that would be PUMAs. Even Riverdaughter has acknowledged that. 

And YOU DON’T DO SHIT. At least we are trying. You don’t do ANYTHING.

Well, one thing I did do is win a Weblog Award.  I see from a quick bit o’ Googling that your idea of “activism” is trolling around some pretty rancid blogs trying to kick up support for PUMA blogs for the same awards, which none of them won.  Why Kat?

Because THEY SUCK!

Ha ha.

*fart*

Well, I think that the anger, paranoia and Onoesque (as in Yoko) certainty in the magnitude of PUMA moral and intellectual superiority was something I saw at the Washington gathering last early August, when a large roomful of PUMA instantly began a verbal attack on me. I’ll admit it felt incredibly weird (several women, Riverdaughter and Sheri Tag, I believe) jumped in to help me out, which was appreciated.

Anyway, I had a brief chat with Will Bower after this breakdown, during which I told him that this crazy behavior was now “part of the story.” Will looked at me with a lawyerly expression and said he had “nothing to say” about that.

My friend Marnie has subsequently told me I should have put that stuff into the film, but I believe that to have done so would have been a violation of a specific verbal agreement I’d had with the organization. Still, as anyone who has seen the film knows, there was much more of the same sort of thing yet to come.

You know, one thing that strikes me - I suppose I’m addressing this to Kat in the Hat - is that in all the time I’ve spent in this place, I have not once heard any joking about the mutilation of female genitalia or of women dying in wars; not once have I read fantasies about violent gender retaliation. I wouldn’t be happy to discover that anyone in here had, way back when, called my wife filthy names in Daily Kos, but on the other hand a PUMA did in fact say “fuck you” to her on a well-known PUMA blog. And…what can I say?...when I first came into this place with the intention of defending my film and correcting what I’d perceived (and still perceive) as erroneous statements about Darragh Murphy, I fould myself treated with much more respect than I’d experienced only minutes before at the PUMA PAC site!

In conclusion, while I doubt that the folks here consider me a Rumproaster (I’m not funny enough, for one thing), I have never fucking considered myself a PUMA. I guess I’m not self-righteous enough.

Brad, thanks for pointing out that while we’re snarky and, sure, we can be kinda mean, we basically aren’t bad folks and, without a doubt, we don’t dabble in genocidal/homicidal/mutilation fantasies. We know where to draw the line on crazy.

Well, one thing I did do is win a Weblog Award.

There’s been very little post-awards discussion. I remember that two or three week period being a particularly ugly one. And while I did make a few posts, here and there, to the effect that I believed The Confluence to be a liberal site (mainly because I believed - and still believe - Riverdaughter to be a genuine liberal), on no occasion did I cast my vote for them. Couldn’t bring myself to, just like I couldn’t bring myself to vote for John McCain.

So congrats, Kevin K. You did win. And thanks to the sammiches I was bribed with, you got a decent number of votes from me (all legal, of course).

And oh yeah, the original Bozo the Clown died today. Very sad. Anyone remember the story floating around, back in the sixties, about the kid who said “cram it, clown” on the Bozo show, which was aired live 5 days a week? I’ve been waiting for someone to use it on myiq2xu.  I had a chance to use it on that blog radio show I just did, but damnit, I forgot.

The Awards things was so silly and they took it so seriously (which is where the whole *fart* thing came up—I’m brilliant that way). All the allegations of cheating were hilarious.  They were commenting and posting all over the place trying to get people to vote for that rightwinger Nice Deb in my category, but that was totally kosher.  Wonkette (and several other A and B-list blogs) endorsing us was some horrible injustice (even though Wonkette did like our blog and sourced us several times). The guys who ran the awards were pretty sick of the PUMAs after a few days.  I know one of them still checks out the Roast.

Thanks for the votes, you Rumproaster.  ;)

Get a room, you two.

This thread is still going?  I saw all the comments and I said to myself, I says, “PUMA thread.”  Duh.

In conclusion, while I doubt that the folks here consider me a Rumproaster (I’m not funny enough, for one thing)

You’re funny enough, Brad (ducks).*

*Joke.  Hillary reference.

You’re funny enough, Brad

What can I say, marindenver? I laughed. Out loud, even.

While we’re on the subject of funny, looks like that alpha male of the cat people, Ronald McBoyToy, has taken his greasepaint, stilts and circus shoes and gone home - with any luck, for good.

Apparently several others have joined him. Lady Bracknell remains, of course.

Hell, no, I will not let this thread die!

Did the Clown bag on the Confluence?

I haven’t kept tabs on Chucky’s site since it emerged from its pre-Weblog pupa stage and assumed its mature form as the Internet’s wordiest, most repetitive, looping Primal Scream.

They don’t need new writers. The whole sham could be seamlessly maintained with a decently-programmed freeware random-post-generator.

Did the Clown bag on the Confluence?

They’ve had a major meltdown over there. Several writers have left and many tears have been shed. I may be wrong but I strongly suspect myiq2xu is among those who have, as Riverdaughter put it, “left for greener pastures.”

No, I’m wrong. He’s still there.

Doh!

OK, belay that order. Looks like Brad is doing the noble thing, and trying to rise above his peevish critics.

If you go over there to annoy Trish, do it in the name of the Patriarchy. Brad is handling his own fights.

Pretty much all comments have been deleted, except for praise.

And for her final trick, Cowardly Trish has scrubbed all the untidy comments, so it’s just as though it never happened…kind of like the PUMAs’ impact in Denver…and November.

Poof!

It’s such a strange disconnect, huh Strange? They dish it out but oh my, they sure as hell cannot take it. I was on a phone call with Riverdaughter long ago. The subject of Darragh came up and she said “Darragh goes away. That’s just Darragh. We’ll be doing a radio show and you’ll ask her a question and she won’t be there. Then twenty minutes late, there she’ll be, back again.”

I got the distinct impression that I was supposed to find this little trait endearing. Like Tommy Christopher said in my film: “Poof! She’s gone!”

An interesting development over the past week or so is that a lot of former and current PUMAs are contacting me either through e-mail or by phone (I say a lot, but that expression is relative to how many PUMA there actually are out there). Let’s just say I’ve been getting some surprise communications. All of these are women, and all are completely fed up with what they see as the incompetent leadership at PUMA. Some are actually interested in using my film to show the failure of leadership.

I tell them all that all they have to do is show interest. Post a review. Buy a few copies.

But yeah. “Poof!”

@Brad—Sorry, you got in ahead of me.

Personally, I think you took a well-deserved shot at someone who has repeatedly earned it. But I also understand your second thoughts and earnest desire to be better than your impulses. In that sense, you showed infinitely more class than Trish.

I apologize if my running play-by-play documented something that you, too, would like to forget. But given the speed with which PUMAs edit reality to bury the evidence of their own meanness and hypocrisy, I take a certain prickish pride in offloading this shit to an archived sub-master they CAN’T erase.

Also, I enjoy posting the evidence in a place I know they will visit—almost certainly—and discover that they FUCKED UP by not moving quickly enough.

In any event, it’s over, you did the right thing…and tomorrow will be on to the next sideshow.

@Brad—Damn, I’m still lagging you.

Funny you should mention the discord in the ranks again. I’m aware of it at PumaPAC, although most of the old crew that was feeling marginalized has already split. The Confluence bores the hell out me, so I’m less in tune with the goings-on in that community.

On the whole, though, it does all seem to come down to the fact that—post-election—they were unable to crystallize a vision or a direction, or even a common enemy. Darragh’s site is lousy with Conservatives quoting WND and FreeRepublic, while The Confluence seems to be angling to become a financial blog under the direction of dakinikat.

Meanwhile, cliques are forming, the social aspects of the blog communities are eclipsing the political unity…and thus we get this post at PumaPAC from just moments ago:

sandipuma 03.15.09 at 10:44 pm

  I to am digusted with Hillary and disgusted with PUMA’s . Come here and you can not chat because everyone of you are in your private club talk leaving out other pumas.
  Other pumas and myself were not good enough to go to Cali to DWP’s meeting. I guess i am not good enough to even be here and to talk to anyone of you.”
  I’m not the only one who feels this way as others do and i have been told.I WILL NOT EVER BE BACK.

In physics, we call this “entropy”...and it only moves in one direction.

Strange -

Your play-by-plays are a hoot. I love it! Don’t ever edit yourself on my behalf!

@Brad—The good news is that I tracked down the whack proxy server settings that were preventing me from hearing your last blogradio interview.

I look forward to hearing that one.

In physics, we call this “entropy”

Bringing the second law of thermodynamics to bear on the PUMA situation? Most apt!

I to am digusted with Hillary and disgusted with PUMA’s . Come here and you can not chat because everyone of you are in your private club talk leaving out other pumas.
Other pumas and myself were not good enough to go to Cali to DWP’s meeting. I guess i am not good enough to even be here and to talk to anyone of you.”

Sounds a lot like some of the communications I’ve been receiving. People are pissed, no doubt about it. Anyway, hope you like the radio show. It didn’t make me many friends.

@Brad—Thanks. I just didn’t want you to feel like a prop in MY play. You’ve got enough to deal with.

You’ve got enough to deal with

No, I’m out from under it all. Really. I’m in pre-production for two features to be shot later this year, and I’ve got deliverables due in 5 weeks on The Watermelon. Plus I’ve got two scenes left to shoot on a feature pilot, along with the final editing on that.

I’m as finished with Audacity and PUMA as I can possibly be. I’ve still got a few itches left to scratch, I suppose, but that’s about it.

As Orson Welles once remarked about a particularly tortured bit of VO sales copy, “Unrewarding.”

Or, perhaps as Huxley once wrote (and I paraphrase): “She loves the Muse, but alas, the Muse does not love her.”

All of these are women, and all are completely fed up with what they see as the incompetent leadership at PUMA.

Brad, though, who is capable of taking up these “leadership” roles? Never mind the fact that they don’t seem to have a coherent agenda aside from hating the shit out of Obama, anyone who supported him, and/or anyone working under him whose last name isn’t Clinton, but who has the skills required to lead the charge?  Say what you want about Will and Diane (and I have), they at least managed to get media exposure for the “movement” and occasionally came off well in interviews. Aside from maybe, say, Amy Siskind, who a lot of PUMAs despise because of her clash with Betty Jean, I just don’t see anyone out there capable of taking over whatever remains of the tattered reins. And who in their right mind would want to? They can’t agree on what they stand for (including stamping out misogyny) and the only concrete issue they were all focused on was primary/caucus reform, and they all seem to have forgotten about that.

I just don’t get what the point of it is anymore except for blurting out “we told you so!,” getting short-term jollies from it, and then burrowing back into their miserable existences.

Oh, and myiq2xu’s still a regular commenter over at Cannonfire, and last seen, was encouraging Cannon to ape him by writing whatever inflammatory trash he wants and let the gripers go hang. Such disloyalty.

Wow. Madamab was one I never expected to go wobbly, although I’m encouraged that she’s merely shifting her emphasis to more direct action (Cupcakes? Performance art? Poetry slams? C4?)

Interesting though, that she shares the same FEMA-camp-incarceration fantasy as DeadGirlsRise and others. I guess when you’ve failed as an activist, the fallback position is to style yourself as a dangerous, hunted resistance-fighter whose, um, er, ah, VERY EXISTENCE—furtive and concealed though it may be—is itself a threat to the System.

Either that, or it’s just another permutation of the old prisoner/prison guard-pirate/slave girl fantasy. Somewhere, I’m sure, whole books have been written on the fine line between “warrior woman” and “unbowed-yet-helpless captive”...that is, if such a line exists.

Brad, though, who is capable of taking up these “leadership” roles? Never mind the fact that they don’t seem to have a coherent agenda aside from hating the shit out of Obama, anyone who supported him, and/or anyone working under him whose last name isn’t Clinton, but who has the skills required to lead the charge?

You’ve got argument from me, Kevin! And please, let’s not mistake my having reported that I’m getting phone calls from disgruntled PUMA for me giving a flaming rat’s fuck about the future of that movement. Even my wife has had it with them.

Interesting though, that she shares the same FEMA-camp-incarceration fantasy as DeadGirlsRise and others. I guess when you’ve failed as an activist, the fallback position is to style yourself as a dangerous, hunted resistance-fighter whose, um, er, ah, VERY EXISTENCE—furtive and concealed though it may be—is itself a threat to the System.

When I was in Denver, there was a lot of talk about roof-top pens being set up for the incarceration of protesters. These cages apparently had barbed wire at the top and were being referred to as “freedom cages” by those of us who remembered Bush’s “freedom zones” for dissenters. That sort of whimsy quickly evolved into the bizarre fantasies you describe.

On the occasions I heard Darragh speaking with interviewers, I felt that she generally did pretty well. She was clear in her perceptions and her ideas were presented in an organized and articulate manner. Her television appearances were less successful, but I chalk that up to a combination of nerves and stage-management.

Every once in a while, however, Darragh would get herself really worked up and start with the paranoia. Tommy Christopher asked me about this on several occasions in Denver, and I told him that Darragh was new at the game and needed to be allowed pull her act together. Unfortunately, Darragh’s act never changed. No one in the movement ever said “no” to her. She was like the Beatles to her followers, incapable of wrong doing. Back then the adoration seemed to me like a minor miracle of sorts - I’ve been mocked in here for having said as much but I stand by that observation. Very few of us ever experience that kind of sudden, out-of-nowhere sort of mass-embrace. PUMA had a golden opportunity and they blew it by 1. undervaluing way too many talented people (not referring to myself) who sought participation, and 2. Not listening to ANY outside critiques of their work. No criticism was heeded, because Darragh was absolutely right in all things.

I remember the day Darragh blew town, leaving all her followers high and dry without even a thank-you note, her mother said to me that Darragh had “changed history.” I remember thinking to myself (but not saying), “Well, maybe it’s a bit early to be saying that sort of thing.” Later that day, Clinton released her delegates and the entire Headquarters went to pieces, with Darragh nowhere to be found.

I was a Clinton supporter. Still am. But Obama was elected president and I’ve got a life to live. Back in September, I said to Riverdaughter that “What’s next?” was the big question. The answer to that question hasn’t been terribly pretty.