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October 19, 2011 - October 12, 2011

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

3RD PERSON POV. I regret to inform you all that Old Guy passed away Monday, a week before his 77th birthday. We will miss him.

He was, in his own words, "an old coot." It's no secret that we took a lot of heat for his posted attempts to take Obama up on his call for a serious dialogue on race relations. He still holds the record for most comments here on his first post and his second.

Should we have published his controversial thoughts? Yes. Are we sorry that the accidental viral diffusion of his posts permanently consigned InstaPunk to the backwaters of the blogosphere? No. On the occasion of his passing, we reread what he had to say and we find no hatred there, only an old man's attempt to tell the truth as he saw it. The way we read it, that's what the First Amendment is all about. And philosophy.

Which doesn't mean that InstaPunk has any right to be linked, respected, popularized, or made fashionable. The First Amendment also carries an implicit mandate that speakers be responsible and bear the consequences for what they say. We have no problem with that. Regret is an unfailing signpost of ambition unhorsed. All we've ever wanted to do here was communicate the truth as we saw it. We still have the freedom to do that. As long as we continue to have that freedom, we're good.

About his passing. We visited when he was failing at the end. He said a few things, in no particular order or context, that seem worth sharing:


I'm not as sure as he is that he's going to hell. But wherever he winds up, I'm pretty sure it will be a lot like like Salem and there will be dogs there.

He didn't look so bad dead. Still cross looking but maybe more calm. Probably the less stress involved in not having to make all that shit.

G'bye, Old Guy. Give'em hell. Whatever your destination.

NUTS. Honestly. It's an interesting question. Christine O'Donnell appears to be a modestly unfocused woman of the sort we've all met, albeit more conservative than most, while her opponent Christopher Coons bristles with elite credentials, including Amherst and Yale.

Is it at all conceivable that voters are getting sick to death of Yale? Perhaps. But maybe they'd relate better to his charismatically common-man story of average American values:


Oh. So the guy hasn't ever actually had a job. You know, the kind of job where you contribute to the bottom line or get fired. He's been browsing in South Africa and Kenya instead. And stuff with foundations, charities, non-profit liaison bullshit and like that. I see. Which is ever so much better than being an average citizen with overdue bills and mortgages and inconvenient religious beliefs, etc. I see. He's obviously a shoo-in for the Senate. When the Delaware voters get a load of just how hard he's worked for Kenyans and Zulus, they'll flock to his banners (which will be very appropriately bio-degradable) because the citizens of Bear, Delaware, feel so soulfully close to Shaka Zulu. Or something.

Guess what. Coons might win. But I don't think O'Donnell is the only wacko in the race. I'll leave it to Michael Barone to decipher the internals of the polls, but I have two observations to make that I think will have an impact on the outcome, regardless of what the polls say.


Think about it. Baldness versus Breastedness. If Karl Rove weren't so old and so betrothed to his whiteboard, he'd see it too.

Except that inside the Beltway, they actually think the resume of a guy like Coons is impressive. Don't laugh. They really do. Go to a Georgetown cocktail party, utter the name 'Yale,' and fourteen female journalists will roll onto their backs with their legs waving in the air. (Another four male journalists will sink to their knees with their tongues stuck out, but that's a whole other topic.)

Here's the thing. I've been to Delaware. If they have to have a strange bedfellow for political purposes, trust me: Christine O'Donnell will be their preference. It doesn't take two graduate Yale degrees to say "fuck no" to more federal spending.

And she has breasts. That would be a pure bonus.

Try to remember, Karl. Way way back. Before the whiteboard. Anything?

Monday, September 20, 2010

PHILLIES TIME. Tonight begins the first of two season-end showdown series between the first-place Phillies and the second-place Atlanta Braves. Both teams have been great at late-inning comebacks and walk-off wins. The Braves are not the Mets. They fight, probably to the very end. In short, we're in the midst of a great pennant race in the NL East, regardless of who you're rooting for.

On WIP SportsTalk radio, they've received the first trash-talk from Atlanta, assigning all the recent success of the Phillies to their homerun-friendly ballpark. The response of host Glen Macnow is my favorite fan participation idea ever. Let's resuscitate the Braves' politically incorrect Tomahawk Chop and use it against them in Philly throughout this series.

Kewl. Spread the word.

P.S. Full disclosure. I actually called in to WIP SportsTalk on the subject of the Phillies a few weeks ago and got on the air. I compared the experience of seeing games at Citizens Bank Park, Veterans Stadium, and Connie Mack Stadium. And I successfully answered a trivia question about the nickname of a player from the Connie Mack era. I'm officially an "Old Phart Phillies Phan."

But I'll be fine, win or lose. Baseball is a symphony that spans the decades, and every high and low has its own beauty, whether the melody is presently carried by the trumpets or the bassoons. Or tomahawk vocals.

FROM THE GHET-TOE. I've remarked before that the best writing at Hotair occurs in the Green Room, and this morning we have more proof. Three excellent posts that represent long-ball elaborations on points made previously here. Top of the list, as always, is Doc Zero, who considers hints being bruited about that the Obama administration may begin expressly targetingdemonizing Sarah Palin rather than John Boehner. The Doc (RTWT, of course) doesn't think it's a good idea:

Palin, on the other hand, commands attention... 

There are lots of colorful personalities making news during this election season, but these elections are not about personality.  Describing them as expressions of unreasoning anger against the Democrats underestimates the thoughtfulness and determination of the Tea Party movement.  Voters are not just looking for scapegoats to punish for a lousy economy.  They are preparing to act against the system itself, in a manner without precedent in modern history.  Palin understands this better than any other frontrunner for the 2012 Presidential nomination.  Her presumptive rivals have ties to various aspects of that system, as with Mitt Romney’s precursor to ObamaCare in Massachusetts.  Too many of them treat the repeal of ObamaCare as a sensitive topic, while Palin uses it as a battle cry.

The last thing Obama should do is pull Palin onto the stage as his chief rival.  She might talk about the perpetual corruption engine of “stimulus” dollars protecting union payrolls, and filtering down into Democrat campaign coffers.  She might ask “centrists” how they can find the center of a system tumbling over the left edge of a cliff.  She might ask “independents” how much independence they think they can retain after a few more years of wild government growth.  She might ask how a President with so little faith in the American people dares to complain when they show him anything less than complete trust and unquestioning obedience.

We tended to agree beforehand.

As Doc Zero rounds the bases, J. E. Dyer steps up to the plate prepared to slam a round-tripper on the question of why the tea partiers are voting their conscience rather than a strategic RINO sellout for a Republican majority. He says, in part (RTWT):

I think many high-information voters see things this way: if we can retake the House and achieve a blocking minority in the Senate – both of which are increasingly probable, even if O’Donnell loses in Delaware – Congress can act as a check on Obama until January 2013.

On the other hand, a RINO-heavy Congressional majority would be likely to set Obama’s course in stone – e.g., with only marginal changes to Obamacare, with some version of amnesty and some version of cap-and-trade – and actually make the Obama agenda harder to decouple from down the road.

The Republicans who would take over as a majority in 2011 just aren’t convincing to a lot of voters.  The voters aren’t stupid; they’re using their votes for their own purposes.  It’s not a knock on Karl Rove that his electoral advice has been overruled.  It’s a signal that something much bigger is going on, and the rules have gone out the window.  Expertise with running campaigns is secondary right now.  In first place is a candidate’s message – and the people are listening with a very critical ear.  They’ve left their party’s, and nation’s, direction on autopilot for a long time now, but they’re no longer willing to.  Their vote is the one thing they have direct, personal control over, and they’re using it to do what they want to do.

We hit at least a solid single on the same pitch last week.

While Dyer was high-fiving teammates in the dugout, Steven Den Beste poled one out of the park with his thoughts on the Obama Legacy:

Obama wanted to be a transformative president, the left’s answer to Reagan. Unfortunately for Obama, he’s going to transform the country, alright, but in the long run it will be the same direction as Reagan.

I think it will take decades to undo most of the damage that Obama has caused (mainly by out-of-control spending and expansion of government) but it’ll happen, and this country will survive it. At the end of Obama’s one-and-only term as president, the country will be wounded but still standing.

Obama’s main legacy is going to be to utterly blacken the reputation of the “Progressive” political program for the next fifty years, if not even longer.

Something we warned about in September 2008. But be sure to read Den Beste's list of what not to do. It's a tape measure job.

If the Green Room is the second string at Hotair, what do they call the first string? The Red Room? Well, there was also at least an RBI double there today from Patterico, who isn't AllahPundit or Morrissey, so what is he? At any rate, with the help of additional researchers (why no HR), he fisked David Brooks for his latest column, which contained the following:


Did I say fisked? I meant knocked into the next county (you know, the one outside the beltway):

Victimhood? Brooks thinks the Tea Party has it — but not Obama, who thinks people don’t like him because of his middle name, which his wife calls the “fear bomb”; or who plays the race card (I don’t “look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills”).

An egomaniacal belief in one’s own rightness and purity? Are you kidding me, David Brooks?

Obama humiliated the Supreme Court in front of the nation. He humiliated Netanyahu. He gives his opponents the finger (not once, not twice, but three times). He is haughty with opponents (even as Michelle assures us that he is never disagreeable).

And more. Keep reading. We, obviously, have been onto Brooks for a long long time.

If you don't like baseball, sorry for my choice of metaphor. But it's pennant season. Especially here in Phillies territory.

P.S. For those of you who don't get the lead-in quote, here's a redneck tea party reminder.


Now we're happy. Go Green Room. Go Phils.

CELEBRITY MAGIC. I know this is unkind, but I can't help it. A little too much smoke not to believe there's a fire in Michelle's belly:


Denied, of course. But not by everybody...

...which leaves one wondering, particularly in the context of the First Lady's well documented high living...


...well, a fairly specific Question: What does she want that would be better than "Hell"? Nutrition Czarina of the U.N.? Ice Queen of the Warming Globe? Or Boss Bitch of the Universe?

CORRECTION: Apparently, the power-giving icon that drives Michelle's ambition is NOT a fish, but a different creature of the sea:


We're left to ponder what happens when the Fisherman's Wife is finally remitted to her original condition. What kind of "Hell" will that be? For some of us, maybe, a step closer to heaven.

HINT FOR THE TIMID. You are absolutely invited to pile on with appropriate video references. We'll start the ball rolling, very slowly and mildly, with this:


Momentum is a thing that builds from a sometimes glacial start. Bear in mind, I've never even heard of Lady Gaga.

TREMBLE... OH YE FEMINAZIS. I had this huge spike in InstaPunk hits at SiteMeter I couldn't explain. I finally found it. It consists of guys looking for a pic of Sarah Palin that is billed up front as a fake. But it amounted to five times my normal traffic. In the immediate aftermath of the Republican primaries and all the fear and loathing expressed by both Republicans and Democrats about her exorbitant influence on establishment politics.

You can say, well, a lot of things. After all, I've had a constant stream of hits associated with my exclusive (fake) photos of Nancy Pelosi's breast implants. But I'm thinking this is more significant than that. With regard to Palin, I never showed or promised any nipple. And I never got this kind of a one-time surge in traffic when the subject was Pelosi. But Palin has finally been revealed as the ultimate kingmaker -- and queenmaker -- in contemporary politics. She's become, overnight, every mythological female goddess and monster in history -- from Juno to Siren to Lamia to Gorgon. Worse, her persona on stage and on camera is up to it. She's ultimate female power, iconic, sexual, and most importantly gravitationally dense.

Inside-the-beltway types can talk gravitas all they want. Sarah Palin possesses specific gravity. Whatever she weighs in avoirdupois, she weighs more in terms of presence. She sucks in eyes, ears, cameras, microphones. When she's there on-screen or on-stage, no one else is. She's a magnet of the senses. Why men can't look away from her and can't stop looking for her. Why so many women love her and why bitter feminists of both sexes hate her. Why the left is is so terrified of her they can't stop trying to destroy her, no matter how self-destructive that quest becomes. Why the right is so phenomenally divided about her. She's not a mind, she's not an ideology, she's not anything in particular you can pin down. She's a fucking hurricane of down-home American charisma.

Yeah, she makes me nervous too.

But the people want Palin. All of them. Perhaps in different ways, but they all want her. Women want Palin because she's real, a mother, a straight-shooting antidote to Harvard, Yale, and Princeton fakes. Or they want her ('Most Wanted' posters) because she's the she-devil who stole their husbands, blighted their careers, evaporated their own self-esteem, shrivelled their loins. Men want Palin because she's real, a woman they can desire just because she's real and not some superficial fake friend-cum-killer bitch. Or because they'll never get a hard-on again knowing she's loose in the world.

Does this mean she's rising in the polls? No. But it does mean she's a hell of a lot more interesting to almost everyone than the gray zombie and his sullen consort in the White House.

Upshot? Sarah is nuclear. As a woman. As a political voice. And as an irresistible cultural attraction. Love her, hate her, symbolify her, or objectify and try to kill her, she's the one thing that just can't be ignored or bled to beige.

Doc Zero was right. Attack her at your own risk. Fail and be destroyed. Succeed and be, uh, destroyed.

And, you horny males: When you go looking for Sarah, look, too, for what I say about her. (do a Search for Palin here at InstaPunk. Tons of stuff.) You might find my many discussions of her equally exciting.

THE PALIN THEOREM: THERE'S NOTHING NOT TO LIKE ABOUT HER UNLESS YOU FIND HER THREATENING SEXUALLY OR, ER, SEXUALLY. OTHERWISE, YOU'D JUST DISAGREE WITH HER AND WISH HER WELL IF NOT VOTE FOR HER.

That's it. Tell me how much you hate her, and I'll tell you how pathological your whole personality is.

Thursday, September 16, 2010

THE DOC HAS A COMPLEMENTARY TAKE. Does anyone know when the Tea Party phenomenon went from plural to singular? When the reporting of Tea Parties became discussion of The Tea Party? Of course you don't. The MSM did that in their usual invisible, instantaneous way. The conventional wisdom agreed that it was best to turn a grassroots movement into a third party that might conceivably threaten Republicans. Beneficiary? Democrats.

Republicans, being the boneheads they've always been, bit. So now they're afraid of The Tea Party. But that doesn't change the facts. There is no such thing as 'The Tea Party.' There are just a bunch of pissed off American citizens who have had it up to here with career politicians on both sides of the aisle. The punditocracy wants to make the defeat of Mike Castle in Delaware about an irresponsible populist cabal that insists on nominating a weak candidate with many political liabilities.

I'd like to turn the tables on the brainiacs for a moment. I'd like to ask them to look at things from our point of view for once. Hard as that may be.

I'm going to presume to speak for the tea partiers for a few minutes. Why? No particular official credentials. I just understand why they didn't want Mike Castle, even at the cost of a Senate seat. Which is characterized as self-destructive, even suicidal in the "real world" political context. Horseshit.

We're completely done with politics as usual. Generations of "moderate" Republicans have connived in the ballooning size of the federal government. Numerical majorities don't matter when tepid moderates betray you on critical votes time after time after time and doom you to the squishy middle where all the billions drain into the special interest bins. You think we're ignorant? That we haven't observed the treacheries of Arlen Specter, Lincoln Chafee, Olympia Snow and her evil twin, Chuck Hagel, and Lindsey Graham? Delaware lives in what is here called the tri-state area but really amounts to a smallish region -- Philadelphia, South Jersey, and the Diamond State -- with common news and sports interests. Mike Castle is Arlen Specter is Frank Lautenberg, antique white guys who've played the political system to their own advantage for multiple decades. We don't believe in them anymore. And if their political opponents have personal liabilities, even scandals, we know at a gut level that the old white guys have far worse hiding in their briefcases, only infinitely more power to stonewall, intimidate, and deal their way out of exposure.

There's a power equation at work that might actually be changing. Maybe it's the scariest development of all for the old guard. Do you think ordinary citizens don't know what a dirty game politics is? We do. Many of us have been outraged in the past but failed to stand for election because of the horrors that would be visited upon by us by our own weakest moments. Everybody has skeletons in the closet -- debt, divorce, business failures, sexual indiscretions, human failings all. What most of us don't have is a power base that can silence the jackals.

Maybe the real frightening by-product of the Delaware election is that the people are expressing a renewed belief in the ordinary citizens who have the courage to stand for office despite their vulnerability to political attack. Maybe that's the truly revolutionary act. That we have reached the point of wanting real citizen government so much that we're prepared to overlook the garden variety sins only the richest and most powerful have the power to suppress. After all, we know that politicians are crooks, however squeaky clean they can keep their public reputations. What if squeaky clean has become an alarm signal all its own, what with all of us being human and fallible and sinful and all?

I repeat. There is no such thing as The Tea Party. What there are are Americans who have had it with slick careerist politicians in both parties who call each other "senator," "esteemed colleague," and "friend," while they all sell us down the river

It's only the MSM which reports this disgust with the Washington political system as a desire for 'bipartisanship.' The people out here in America, the real people who pay the bills, don't want collegiality and friendly elbow digs in the halls of congress. They want pitched battles over principle, fought by representatives who understand that their job is to serve the American people, not line their own pockets while fooling most of the people most of the time.

That's a position which is as far as you can get from self-destructive" or "cutting off your nose to spite your face." There's no point whatever in having another Republican majority like the last one, in which old guys plunged headfirst into the government trough immediately after winning a mandate to LIMIT THE SIZE AND REACH OF GOVERNMENT.

I urge you to continue scheduling your own little tea parties. No vats of tea required. Just the tidy dumping of all the little bagmen who want us to praise them for robbing us blind while they make grand speeches and express their entitlement to push us around.

Sorry, Charles.

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

THE BELL RINGS. I quit watching Deadliest Catch when it descended into bathos after the death of Captain Phil. Sooner or later, I'm sure, Ice Road Truckers will follow the same path. But I might be inclined to cut them a little more slack. Reason? This season in particular has been almost obsessively about character, revealing subtleties that take multiple episodes to lay bare. The constant risks of driving the Dalton Road in Alaska -- Fairbanks to Prudhoe Bay -- are the given, exploitable obviously for the dangers every driver faces, as well as the economic pressure to score the big bucks. But it's actually more Alone than Endurance. In the end it's not really man against nature or man against man. It's man against himself. You know. Truer somehow. More elemental.

Who can't sympathize with Lisa, trying to earn enough money to buy back her lost Tennessee walking horse? Everything's against her. She's not physically strong enough to smack the ice off her frozen brakes. And whenever she screws up, the CB gossip has her in its crosshairs within moments. The girlie who shouldn't be here at all. The male drivers are like antibodies rejecting a virus. But she's brave. Full-on brave. Yes, she has something to prove, but she knows she can only prove it by being good enough, not by whining, crying, or demanding dispensations for her sex. Bottom line? She's a trucker, not a diva.

But there is a diva on the scene. Shockingly, it's the central casting hero of the Dalton Road, Jack. He's talented, intelligent, incredibly knowledgeable, and the undisputed king of the heavy loads. Yet he also has a disconcerting tendency to leave people waiting. He's perpetually late to work, even when the stakes are high. When first we saw it, it seemed a clever response to an obnoxious personality (Hugh -- more about him later), but then we began to observe that it's chronic. A fault of ego. The Dalton Road has a way of exposing faults.

Which brings me to the centerpiece of the show and this post. A pair of Canadians who have been spotlighted since the beginning of the series. Alex and Hugh. Best buds and arch-rivals. Hugh always beats Alex in the race for the most loads in the ice truck season, wherever it is. When the show was filmed in Canada, they were just the two most colorful characters. Now that they're in Alaska, they're the outsiders, the outlanders who have to earn the respect of the veterans of this most dangerous of all roads.

It's been fascinating to watch. Almost a parable. Hugh is leading in the race for loads, as always, but not by much, as always. But he is making enemies. For him it's exclusively about the money and his own ego.He never stops to help a trucker in trouble. He chisels his way past all the rules, starting so early in the morning, for example, that he rarely has to undergo the bureaucratic rigors of the weigh station. If a load isn't securely tightened by the loaders, it's not his problem. Damaged cargo is the company's problem, not his, even if he has foreseen the possibility. He continually cuts corners on safety, eschewing chains as "jewelry" and taking chances that could endanger not only his life but others.

Alex, on the other hand, has a dozen children and is a committed Catholic with a crucifix hanging from his rearview mirror. Perhaps it's overstatement to call him the saint of the Dalton Road, but perhaps not, too. We've seen him stop for a driver in a ditch Hugh merely laughed at, and stay for hours helping to dig out the truck and the driver's job. He was the last man to leave the scene, and given what we know of his cardiac history (bad), he was risking his life to do so. The driver he helped was, typically, less than fully grateful. They'd had words in the past, and all he was willing to acknowledge was that they were now "even." Right. You resented him for some fancied sleight and he saved your job. Even.

In another episode we saw Alex stop at the scene of an accident and stay for hours trying to save the life of a man who was bleeding dangerously from a savage gash in his face and throat. This against a deadline for the load he was carrying. When he finally left, he recited the Lord's Prayer in full and somehow managed to meet his deadline by a handful of minutes. But not before his friend Hugh had stolen the load Alex had waiting for him on the return trip to Fairbanks. Hugh called on the CB to crow, and Alex said he wanted Hugh to make his money, only maybe not at his expense.

Two things about all this. Ice Road Truckers is almost pure capitalism. Risk versus reward, with the spoils going to those who perform the best in a pitiless life-and-death market environment. But capitalism is not an anti-moral system. Hugh is making enemies by caring for nothing but money. Alex is making friends by, well, being a good man. He just is. And you can see that the people he interacts with see it too. Eventually, what is called "luck" will begin to turn his way. Further, even in this money-for-freight dogfight, character matters. Capitalism makes extraordinary demands on that character, perhaps, but it is not inimical to those who are good and brave and altruistic.

Second. And perhaps most interestingly. Alex and Hugh really are friends. Which spins us into the realm of theology. When Alex had a serious cardiac event a season or two ago, Hugh was genuinely grieved, despite all his bluster to the contrary. It's clear that on the Dalton Road -- was there ever a better metaphor for life itself? -- Hugh is a kind of demon. But he also needs Alex and very probably loves him for the same goodness we admire.

Sharpshooters at Christianity continually ask why, if God is good, there is still evil. I'm thinking evil is the proof that good is good and not just a checkbox. If it isn't a choice, it's nothing at all. But if we look at the good versus evil showdown in terms of need, it's not so much the case that good needs evil as that evil needs good. Hugh gleefully announces that "good guys finish last" after he's stolen Alex's return load. He defines himself by being Alex's polar opposite. (He's actually nicknamed the 'Polar Bear' in the show.) But you're struck by the fact that when Alex retires or dies, Hugh will probably lose his vitality, his very reason for living. He'll be reduced to the empty, money-grubbing pisshead he really is. All his stature comes from "beating" Alex.

And, truthfully, he'll never actually accomplish that. What he needs most of all is Alex's forgiveness. And every time he accepts it, he is diminished.

Here endeth the lesson. Understand it? Then we got us a CONVOY.

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

WELL, THE SONG'S NOT BAD, BUT WHY ARE HER PANTIES SO WRINKLED? Women still think they can rule us with sex. What dopes. Nobody's interested anymore. Despite this. Cher is so over. Even if she's still somehow more desirable than Lady Gaga. (Maybe it's the less pixilation...) About which Camille Paglia has the lowdown, as always.


It's a shame, really. Girls have finally discovered their own predatory version of sexuality, and men are too busy shopping at Bath & Bodyworks and gazing into the mirror to notice. Isn't it ironic?


Well, maybe not. People are strange.


Or, at least, stranger than they used to be. We're past all that sex stuff.

Sailors? What sailors?

Never mind. But doesn't Lady Gaga sound exactly like Madonna, only with smaller tits?

RECOVERY (CONT). We're talking 80s here, and I'm counting on you all to help. There was a time when MTV was king and I swore I'd never give it up. But MTV gave me up instead. They moved to gold teeth and reality programming. Fat people and no videos without tarted up Bentleys. So. What am I going to do? Show you a few videos I remember and DEMAND that you do the same. First up? The video that launched a TV show and a fashion industry. Forget Thriller. This is the all-time moneymaker.


No, it's not a Top Ten list. Just what I remember and what's available on the Internet. For example, this one is maybe the best video of that decade but you can't embed it. Sadly, she now looks like a querulous cow, but back then she was every man's dream. Which is why we'll take a different direction entirely and show you an IMPORTANT video, the rapprochement between rap and rock.


Now it's getting more personal. Rock ballads. There were a bunch of hellacious white trash guys who wanted to prove they weren't psychopaths. I'm convinced. This is the best of them. The real video is here (embedding disabled, etc), but at least we have the song.


I suppose the women have to have their say, too. Never knew one who didn't love this one.


With that out of the way, I think we can all agree that 80s MTV video was mostly about the women. They were awesome.


Can she sing? Who cares? I mean, really. Who cares? If you were lost in  the woods, wouldn't you want Laura Brannigan yelling your name in that bronze voice? Sure you would.


Don't you think I know Heart should be here? Like this one (disabling embedded blah blah). So Roxette is merely a stand-in. Could have been this one for that matter. Still hot. They were all hot.


Oops. Yeah. There were some guys too. Even the chicks loved some of the guys.


Especially the old guys.


You knew I couldn't get through this without a nod to the one and only's...


Now it's a free-for-all. None of my picks were scientific. Yours don't have to be either. My only rule (God, I hate rules): Please don't YouTube in the Comments. It screws everything up for everyone else by changing the margins. Just give me the link. The best ones -- my choice, unfair, I know -- will get full play as an update or postscript. Fair enough or sorta?

UPDATE. Youth will be served. La Brizoni has emerged from his Fortress of Solitude to set us oldsters straight on the real meaning of MTV, etc. Behold and adore his greatnessitudinousness:

"Jump" over "Hot For Teacher"? Unacceptable.

Golden Age MTV may have been a wellspring of vitality for old men who knew better than to get boring in the dotage of their 30s, sure. But for us wee tykes who watched it in our formative years, the M stood for Mindfuck. The 8-year-old mind Can. Not. Process the weird-ass puppets and screwed-up cartoons that used to be MTV's bread and butter when they ran out of record company promos. To the pre-pubescent child, they simply cannot exist. In a twisted, even demented way, it was for the children of the 80s and 90s their first exposure to capital-W Wonder.

The prime mover? Liquid Television. It was the early days of infomericals, so networks still thought they had to throw whatever crap they could find on the air during those late night slots. MTV had enough sense to keep that crap hip and edgy, and Liquid Television was born.

Beavis and Butthead were Liquid Television's most famous debutantes, but I always preferred Bobby and Billy. All the penny-ante "subversive" sexual stuff went over my head, but a cartoon where the kids just musket blast a family of birds? And there's blood? I couldn't have been more shocked if I'd grown an arm out of my forehead. I laughed so hard I thought I'd torn something internally.

In the same vein were Winter Steele, a filthy, foulmouthed puppet before filthy, foulmouthed puppets were cool, and Dogboy, which, me not knowing any of the referrent nostalgia (or, again, the sex stuff), was compelling gibberish.

Liquid TV wasn't all, and weirdness wasn't all. Sometimes, it was funny. Hella funny. Remember Sinatra covering the hits of the early 90s? Remember Jimmy the Cab Driver's take on "Ironic"? Remember the pants-wetting greatness of The State?

Oh, you want videos? Proper 80s music video-videos? Fine. Here's "Freedom of Choice," Devo's MTV-iest video ever. Unless that's "Through Being Cool." And since this is InstaPunk, I can't not mention their cover of You Know Who.

There's also this, the greatest song to scream along with at the top of your lungs from a speeding car. Or, if your appetite for terrifyingly strange has limits (but how could it?), the last good Danzig song (second best song to scream from a speeding car) is straight badass, no chaser. Bet you never thought a Pilgrim's Progress quote could be totally Head Banging Hard Rocking Awesome, did you? You thought wrong

One last one. It's a cheat.

The only one? My blushes, B-Boy.

P.S. Apotheosis and Alfa nominated some great stuff too. Take a look after you're done being underwhelmed by the genius of WonderBriz. Which begs the question: where are the rest of you? There must have been some moments when you tore yourself away from sc-fi movies to enjoy some muic videos. No? You never did lose your virginity? No. Forget that. TMI.

P.P.S. Oh. Almost forgot. "The greatest song to scream along with at the top of your lungs from a speeding car"? Typical millennial hubris. Here's the real one. It comes with what the millennials don't have -- provenance. Actual speeders doing actual screaming from actual police during actual high-speed pursuits. First the song:


Now the provenance. In the form of just one anecdote from several available. Friend of mine in E-Type Jag grooving on Heartbreaker at night when the candy lights start stertoring themselves in the behind. Yeah, he's screaming the lyrics, and yeah, he has no intention of being caught. Ancient Brit electrics. You can hit a toggle arm on the steering column that turns on the headlights but no other lights, meaning you can turn OFF the taillights. At 125 mph. Country roads. Heartbreaker. For the cops. Clean getaway.

Whine at your daddy all you want. Just don't try to go all motorhead on real motorheads. Brizoni.

ALONE. Porcelain isn't a woman. She's a state of mind. Where I am. In the back seat. Headed who knows where. Love this song. Eduardo knows. Lake suspects. Doing my best to keep on keeping on.

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