July 21, 2015
"Just chillin' in Cedar Rapids."
Via Legal Insurrection, which deems it "embarrassing" and "cringeworthy." I say it's one more permutation of the political artform pioneered by our great cultural benefactor, Richard Nixon, when he said "Sock it to me?"
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
87 comments:
That this evil bitch is even considered for POTUS indicates how far we have fallen as a nation.
I remember Nixon saying that on Laugh-In, and thinking "I wonder if he knows what that means."
You know, these days, I find that I have less and less desire to read Althouse because every time I open up the site the first thing I see is either trivial, irrelevant or pointless. This post is all three.
She is just one of us. And she has practiced Alinski's tactics for 40 years, just like one of us.
So it's our duty to elect her for Old Times sake. But we better hurry up before she shrivels up and dies. Once elected, if she keels over, Bill can stuff her body and speak through her like the Wizard of Oz behind the curtain that he has always been.
She looks so young and hip. Not at all tired.
I have never understood why Nixon agreed to go on Laugh-In.
"How do you do, fellow kids?"
And the executives who gave us "New Coke" breathe a sigh of relief: "At last! We're not the worst!"
Nixon's thing wasn't exactly great, either.
Hillary trying to act like a human is always painful to watch.
It's astonishing how tone deaf she is to how phony she sounds when attempting to be "hep." She should always ask herself, "Would my teen-age daughter have cringed if I had tried to use teen 'lingo' with her and her friends?"
The question answers itself.
It's a shame that people are making Bryan Townsend read Althouse's blog. We know Bryan, Hillary already explained it to us years ago: "The problem with the internet is that there are no gatekeepers." So criticism of her gets published when we all know, deep down, that criticizing her is wrong on so many levels.
Baymax of Big Hero Six spoke in a more natural, human manner than Hillary.
I'm fairly certain that Hillary! lost her personality to sniper fire. Regardless of where it is now, I'm fairly certain that it's covered in carpet fibers.
Jason, ya gotta have the GIF:
http://www.reactiongifs.us/how-do-you-do-fellow-kids-30-rock/
Hillary blends in in Iowa like Joe Pesci in "My Cousin Vinny". It doesn't reach "cringeworthy". Her speech to the black church; now that's cringeworthy and embarrassing. Excerpts should be played over and over again, just like the reset button and taking fire over Bosnia.
Now I'm considering voting for her. So inspiring. So authentic.
Exactly what Robert Cook said.
When a person of a grandparent's age tries to be cool and hip, the exact opposite happens.
Chillary?
Rehajm says: She looks so young and hip. Not at all tired.
Actually, that should be "I ain't no ways tired!"
I can't wait to see what the Republican party is going to do with this challenge.
The GOP will blow it.
What I want to know is whether Hillary's motorcade gets a photo traffic ticket when it passes through Cedar Rapids. They send out a ton of tickets on I-380 as you pass through town.
Why is she not in jail??
Before I buy into the "sock to me?" equivalency meme I'd like to know more about the clip. It's Laugh In, I know, but when? And who? And why? When is important because presidential politics were more sane in the 1960s. Back then the national press (basically eight or ten newspapers and three TV networks) were incurious about candidates until they actually announced their candidacy, unlike today's scenery chewing about who's up and who's down at least half a year before even a single primary vote is cast.
I don't known much about Laugh In. Time to check... Wikipedia says Laugh In ran from January 22, 1968 to March 12, 1973. The article classifies Laugh In as a variety show (Huh? From what little I've seen there's NO variety.) The New Hampshire Primary was held on March 12, 1968 (Laugh In died five years later to the day) so Nixon was either an announced candidate or the official GOP nominee when that clip aired (I'd be amused to learn he was actually elected or serving in office at the time.) Knowing when would condition who? and why?. Who? Did Nixon seek an appearance on Laugh In? Did one of his aides call up NBC and say, "the Boss want's to crack wise on Laugh In," or did the producers' solicit his appearance?
Most important is why? Did Nixon seek the appearance because he was a fan of the show, or did he think it was politically advantageous? Did he think, I'll show those commies at the Post that Dick Nixon is a hipster? Just read the following aloud using your best Richard Nixon wobbly-jowlly voice:
I'll show those Ivy League commie pansies that Dick Nixon's a happening guy. I'm hip. I'm cool. I'm funny. Just ask Pat. She's always laughing at my antics, especially in the dark.
Pretty improbable.
It must be that Laugh In's producers or writers sought out Nixon because they thought he was unintentionally funny. I have no evidence of this but "sock it to me" was either coined by Laugh In or appropriated by the show as it's tagline. Except for the Nixon clip it's always given as an imperative, and a meaningless one at that. I think it was coined as a kind of verbal badge, like a medieval war cry, that served only to identify the tribal loyalties of the speaker. The joke is Nixon doesn't understand that it's literally meaningless, that instead something is to be given to him in an abrupt and overwhelming way, like a hit of cocaine up the nose. I imagine there were a lot of takes... Thank you, Mr. Nixon, now can we have just one more? OK, this is Take 431... Action! Turn to your left and say the line with a hint of hostility.
"I have never understood why Nixon agreed to go on Laugh-In."
One of the head writers was a friend of his, and recommended it as a way to humanize him and show he had a sense of humor. Whether it worked and helped him in the election is up for debate, but Humphrey had actually turned the show down.
Sometimes you have to embrace your squareness--voters can even see that as a plus if they find you likable. The coolest kid in the room isn't going to be the president.
Somehow, Nixon pulled it off--he won four national elections, twice by landslides at the bottom of the ticket, once by landslide at the top, and won and lost close ones. He did this despite having a cold, stiff image.
Hillary is likely studying him.
Nixon's cadence always seemed off... to meee?
Like Nixon in a pant suit.
"Knowing when would condition who? and why?. Who? Did Nixon seek an appearance on Laugh In? Did one of his aides call up NBC and say, "the Boss want's to crack wise on Laugh In," or did the producers' solicit his appearance?"
I can't view the clip, but if it's the one where he said "sock it to me?" on the air then it was late in the campaign--like September '68, and the show was a big hit for NBC. The head writer of the show (I think Paul Keyes?) was close to Nixon's team, and asked him to come on and the campaign agreed (I think Humphrey was also asked but turned them down). They figured it wasn't so much to make Nixon seem "hip" but to show he had a sense of humor--show a different side of him as part of 1968's "new Nixon" which was a successful rebranding.
If being on the show helped at all, then it was crucial, as Nixon won a very close one that fall. Of course other things helped (Chicago Convention riots, and collapse of Paris Peace Talks).
Six takes for Mr Nixon to do that Laugh-In line.
I wonder how many takes before she nailed the line.
Like Nixon in a pant suit.
I think it's high time we all got on the same page regarding this Hillary apparel question, after all we don't watch out we'll be condemned to eight years of "pant suit" ascendancy.
"Pant suit" strikes me as inadequate. My mother always took me to a shop (a haberdashery with a boys' department in the rear) clerked by a gent who always referred to the lower half of the suit as the "pant." That troubled me when I heard him say that, since a "pair of pants" always refers to one garment and not two. (Quaestor was obsessed with semantics from an early age.) Trousers is archaic, and "pants suit" has two non-euphonious esses. Therefore I respectfully nominate and coin panzoot à la the legendary zoot suit from days of yore, which brings up an obvious parody song in the style of Cab Calloway:
This is the story of Hillie the moocher
She was a low-down politi-cooz. Her
Hubby was prez,
Porked the gals,
Got hizzelf impeached,
Him an' all his pals.
Hi-dee hi-dee hi-dee-hi
(Hi-dee hi-dee hi-dee-hi)
Ho-dee ho-dee ho-dee-ho!
The downtown of Cedar Rapids is famous for its smells, particularly from a hog slaughter plant. Not a place I'd pick for chillin'.
Hillary just maxin' an' relaxin', chillin' like a villain
Pretty sure "sock it to me" originated in some soul song,Aretha? James Brown? then became a joke phrase
I was wrong in thinking the electorate would see, could see, past the surface appeal of our current president in his two elections for the office.
I now know that there is a substantial voter base for Hillary, despite her obvious statist, totalitarian, Alinsky-ite, prevaricating, divisive, opposition-destroying predilections. She is going to win the election, barring a heart attack.
This horrible woman, this abominable person, is going to be the next president of the United States. She cannot be stopped by conventional electoral means; she will cheat as necessary to prevail. She has no personal shame, no rational limits, no concerns other than the accumulation of power. No lie will be too big, no opposition will be allowed, no corruption will be too obvious and nothing, her past behavior, her present ridiculous campaign, her future destructive plans for the country, will stop her from being elected.
God help us all. The last two terms of Obama will be remembered fondly, as Carter's term is now remembered fondly in comparison, when this creature holds power.
I was 14 in 1968 and Laugh-In was must viewing. It was funny, had great-looking (oft scantily-dressed) women and the show was new and attractive.
I've read on the Internet machine that Humphrey's camp thought it cost them the election. I'm not sure they knew how they knew that, but they could conceivably be right. It was a big deal, as I recall, although ephemeral.
It was talked about at water coolers and watering holes and playgrounds all over the country, but just for a day or two. It's appeal was broad but not deep.
@Wilbur - I was 12/13. My family gathered around the TV each week to watch Laugh-In. Sunday night, IIRC.
I remember being puzzled at Nixon's weird delivery.
Pretty sure "sock it to me" originated in some soul song,Aretha?
It's certainly in Respect. Whether or not it originated there, I don't remember.
I wonder how many takes before she nailed the line.
They'll let us know just as soon as she does.
Quaestor, The English, a non-negligible number of native English-speakers in England, maintain the use of the word trousers, so I don't think the word can be described as archaic. (Their 'pants' are what we call underpants.) Grew up in a small town in Ohio, and the local clothing store we shopped at was owned by a father and son partnership; the father said 'pant', singular ('this pant is sturdy enough to survive a hundred washings'). He was nearing retirement age in the mid-70s.
Nixon's tone is that of a question ... Sock it to meeee?
He actually nails it. Hillary is awful.
"Nixon's tone is that of a question"
Sure, but it was (wait, let me check my thesaurus) .... stilted.
I've read on the Internet machine that Humphrey's camp thought it cost them the election.
Nixon didn't need Laugh-In. His biggest help in the election was George Wallace -- he ran on a third-party ticket and siphoned off enough votes in Democratic northern and midwestern blue-collar areas to hurt Humphrey.
Hillary Clinton must be defeated.
Carthage must be destroyed.
I don't think Hillary is still alive. That video clip is obviously a hasty video animation; none of the facial features quite match up with each other and the mouth movements are unconvincing. #HillaryHeadroom.
I still say "trousers". My second wife said "britches".
Nothing wrong with that. Is there?
OM, Laugh-In was on Monday nights.
Ahhh, thanks.
Hey cats, Hil is real zoot with the jive...catch my drift, daddy-O? That feline is definitely not squaresville. Root, toot, gotta scoot.
See ya later, gator.
Lydia--do you think Wallace hurt Humphrey more than Nixon? Both Humphrey and Nixon were competing for law and order votes, and both represented the anti-incumbent strain which was powerful that year. I don't know that a lot of Waalace voters would otherwise have gone with Humphrey.
You'd have to dig down into the numbers, but just looking at Ohio, you'll see that Nixon got 45.23% of the vote, Humphrey got 42.95%, while 11.82% went to Other, which would include Wallace. Surely a lot of that 11.82% was those blue-collar folks who normally voted Democratic.
Wallace voters were conservative Democrats, both North and South, who felt betrayed by LBJ's civil rights turnabout. Before LBJ, the Republicans were the Civil Rights champions. Wallace's campaign slogan was "In your heart, you know he's right."
Humphrey was a weenie. I'd rather have Machiavelli in the White House than a weenie. Nixon was more like Cesare Borgia than a weenie.
Hillary is like Lucrezia Borgia, except with an axe. She's Lizzie Borgia!
LIzzie Borzia took an axe,
Gave Joey Sforza forty whacks.
When she saw what she had done
She gave Ercole d'Este forty-one!
Wallace's campaign slogan was "In your heart, you know he's right."
You sure it was Wallace?
That was Goldwater '64.
She is going to win the election, barring a heart attack.
I disagree.
She has launched her campaign twice. That smells of desperation. She has a lot of baggage that will be easy to exploit.
I'm here in the Soviet of Seattle, and I'm not seeing ANY Hillary bumper stickers....maybe, it's early, but I just don't feel the excitement.
In the "Studs Lonigan" trilogy, "sock it in" is a phrase Studs and his pals use for a dirty-dancing move made by girls. As follows:
"They talked about the music, dances, the people present, places to go. As they glided into a corner it seemed that Loretta let herself go tensely against him. He thought maybe she would sock it in. But he had to be careful. She was a nice girl. She might get sore. Had to handle nice girls with kid gloves that way, until you broke down their resistance. And her brother was tough."
And ...
"Weary Reilley went to the Bourbon Palace to get a pickup to take to the party the old boys from Fifty-eighth Street were throwing. There was a huge crowd at the dance hall. He moved about, and danced with several girls. One of them wouldn’t sock it in. Another couldn’t dance well enough to please him. A third laughed as if she were an idiot. The fourth girl was pretty in a chubby way with brown eyes and a quiet manner. He guessed, though, that here was a case of still waters running deep. She was his meat. She weighed about a hundred and twenty-five pounds, nice figure, got a guy hot just looking at her, straight, small hard breasts, nice legs, meat on them and on the thighs. Just his speed! He danced three successive times with her, and she seemed to like him. At first she drew back when he got her in the corners, but then she laid it right up to him, and they socked it in plenty. That made him sure that she was what he wanted. She had everything. He was going to give it to her like she’d never gotten it before. Dancing with her, he thought of what he would do to her, direct, crude images of brutalized sex."
The girl "socked it in plenty"!
Damn, I typo'd Borgia.
We should get this pant v. pants thing straightened out. While I admit trousers is still current over there, it's geezer-speak here. I suppose if one polled a cross section of high schoolers today only a minority could correctly define trousers. Meanwhile American English has become so ubiquitous that most Englishmen speak of underpants when the speak of underpants, while knickers are still much preferred to panties, and rightly so. Knickers sounds like something funny and salacious, while panties sounds like baby talk.
Pants and britches are not synonymous. Britches is a variant of breeches, which traditionally stop at the knee. Today breeches are for riding and fit tightly below the knee making boot wear more comfortable. Some hold that breeches and jodhpurs are the same. I say not quite.
Over here trousers is rarely heard. In America it's pants, slacks, and jeans. Pants are dressy. Slacks are more casual, and jeans are more casual still. Notice that all these terms for a garment worn over the legs take the plural form. Though some do say pant and mean the garment, nobody says slack and means the garment; the same goes for jeans.
Now occasionally one does hear trouser, as in "That 50p fell down my trouser leg." Thus a trouser is half a pair of trousers. In this country one may hear "That quarter fell down my pant leg." Applying the evident rule a pant is half a pair of pants. In the case of the wayward coin it always falls down a pant leg or trouser leg, never a jean leg or a slack leg.
Now here's something interesting: Before breeches gentlemen wore slops, sometimes called trunks. Trunk singular even in the 16th century was a lidded box, and slop was something runny and unappetizing. Today gentlemen often wear slacks and only wear trunks to bathe in. A trunk is still a box with hinged and lockable lid, and slop isn't something you'd choose to eat. Thus slops and slacks are garments for the legs, while slop and slack imply disregard of conventional self-discipline.
Chill now, 'cause it's gonna get hellishly hot for her someday.
Devil in a blue pantsuit just doesn't have the same tone. -CP
Chillin' is not exactly avant garde speech amongst today's youth. It has been used ironically for some time now. Try to keep up. If you watched the clip without hate in your hearts, which I do as a moderate, you would find it unremarkable.
She's likable enough.
Tradguy mentioned the Wizard of Oz and the little man behind the curtain in ref. to Bill. So... Hillary would be a "meat curtain" Apparently the internet has ruined my morals 'cause I know "meat curtains" is a euphamism for a part of the female anatomy. So I saw a flash, just for an instant, Shrillery's "meat curtains". My minds eye has ceased talking to me, and I am going to have to drink some bleach to get the taste out of my mouth. Not mixing metaphors, I threw up a little in my mouth too.
Slacks is somewhat dated, too. I use it to irritate my children.
Nixon wasn't a stranger to injecting himself into the culture. One of the strangest moments in presidential/sports history:
1969 #1Texas vs #2Arkansas
Never seen anything like that before or since.
How this came about.
Quaestor, 'Lizzy Borgia' made my afternoon at work; thanks! I'd like to suggest two things, and then acknowledge that you're the arbiter thylacorum: one, what the kids don't know is an emptiness as vast as the ocean and, two, more seriously, the United States being home to myriad linguistic developments, peculiarities etc etc it may be that a definitive exposition on the usage of pants in this country is beyond even your reach.
All the family in my grandparents' generation (southern Ohio) said britches, I think, although most of them had had the word and its use schooled out of them, as it were, one way or another, by the time I was a child.
Nixon was the last president with brains and stones. Reagan gets all the credit, but tri-lateral diplomacy lead to the fall of USSR and made China beg to pollute itself to death filling up our Wal-Mart stores with cheap crap to make all of our Bubba's happy on welfare.
"Chillin' is not exactly avant garde speech amongst today's youth."
Ah, I think maybe that's the point.
That's right ARM, Hillary is doing hip, ironic beer cozies to shore up her cred with the yoots.
No.
Among other reasons, the hip yoots don't use beer cozies because then you can't see the label of the PBR they're ironically drinking...
Original Mike said...
Ah, I think maybe that's the point.
No, you missed the point. She said something that is unremarkable. Something that people of all ages use routinely, in jest.
To find that clip the slightest bit remarkable you have to be looking through deeply tinted glasses.
You are old fucks, and I wasn't born when Nixton did this.
He seems Square-was that during your time oldies?
Most of you were probably "square".
You all sound repressed, and likely asuexual during that time, and as a result, bitter. No one wanted to touch your cock...how sad.
You didn't get any..because you were unattractive....except Althouse who was attractive.
Republican voters don't have sex and are angry because others are getting it.
tits.
Is the Scooby Doo van meant to be ironic too?
"She has launched her campaign twice. That smells of desperation."
That smells of alcohol-aggravated senile dementia.
Original Mike Could be. Of course, she got the name wrong (It's the Mystery Machine).
The only thing "chill" around Hillary is Ambassador Stevens. He's pretty much room temperature.
Titus: "You are old fucks,..."
Hush little one. I can't quite make out all the particulars of your messiah obama handing nukes to the govt that throws gays kicking and screaming off the top of buildings to their little gay deaths.
Not to worry.
Just think of them as post-birth abortions...without the ability to sell off the parts.
Titus wrote: Republican voters don't have sex and are angry because others are getting it.
I hate to crush pathetic delusions (Actually that's not true; I delight in crushing pathetic delusions..) you're not getting sex, Titus. You're getting fecal matter where it doesn't belong.
I was a huge fan of Laugh In. I never missed an episode, at least until it jumped the shark. I remember seeing Nixon on it. I was only 10 or 11 years old, but I recall thinking that Nixon did it knowing that he had a rep as a stiff, serious guy and that, by doing what he did on the show, he was essentially poking fun at himself. It was an ironic appearance. "I know I'm the ultimate square, and I know that by doing this I won't disabuse anyone of the idea that I'm the ultimate square." He was under no illusions. My opinion. Hillary, on the other hand, thinks that by using the word "chillin'," she is absorbing (and subsequently exuding) some of the cool. It's dishonest at its core. It is, as the kids say, an "epic fail."
She's likable enough.
When this is the best praise even ARM can come up for a Leftwing hack, that hack's days are numbered.
""Just chillin' in Cedar Rapids.""
Oh, give Hill a break. Someone had probably just asked her, "What up, dawg?"
Titus, you're so right. I mean, whoever heard of a conservative family with 8 or 9 kids and a progressive family with just one. Those Rebublicans aren't getting any, no sir.
Could be worse; she could have said "chillaxin'".
"You'd have to dig down into the numbers, but just looking at Ohio, you'll see that Nixon got 45.23% of the vote, Humphrey got 42.95%, while 11.82% went to Other, which would include Wallace. Surely a lot of that 11.82% was those blue-collar folks who normally voted Democratic."
I'm sure that accounts for some of them--there are the economically populist types that would normally have gone for HHH but went with Wallace because of his anti-integration and "beat up the hippies" views. But it seems more likely that more of those voters would have gone with Nixon in a 2-way race, as Nixon's campaign used a lot of the same themes as Wallace did (though with less crudeness) and both campaigns represented a "protest" vote against LBJ and his proxy, HHH.
This would also explain the 1972 result--many of those Wallace voters picking Nixon in a 2-way race four years later.
I don't have exit polling data to back this up, just my read of the campaigns that year.
"She's likable enough."
Obama's 2008 gaffe may become Hillary's 2016 slogan.
All she has to be is likeable "enough". She can learn from Nixon! No one wanted to have a beer with the guy--as Homer said "I bet he never had a Duff in his life!"--but they preferred his square, calm self over LBJ's proxy or that radical McGovern.
To the one or three people who took this conversational diversion: I still use the word "trousers." (I think I use the word "pants," but not as often as "trousers." I never use the word "slacks.")
I never thought about it or thought it unusual until a woman I worked with years ago who was American but who had largely grown up in England remarked on my use of the word. (She was also multi-lingual, and spoke about five languages.) She pointed out that Americans did not typically use the word "trousers," though the British did. I had never even noticed whether others around me used the word or not. I must have picked it up from my mother or father.
MadisonMan said...
Pretty sure "sock it to me" originated in some soul song,Aretha?
It's certainly in Respect. Whether or not it originated there, I don't remember.
It's not in the Otis Redding original.
Also, despite various folks trying to appropriate it as an anthem for wimmynz rites, it's about a cheating woman.
Do me wrong honey, if you wanna
You can do me wrong, honey while I'm gone
But all I'm askin' is for a little respect when I come home
I had never even noticed whether others around me used the word or not. I must have picked it up from my mother or father.
You probably got it from your contact in the Kremlin, the Russians speak British English.
I haven't seen the crunchberry tree for ages!!!
Robert Cook, Trousers was a word used in my home when I was a child, far from the Kremlin, ha; But with 'britches' in the not too distant past, it may have been a usage adopted in order to mark a step up the socio-economic ladder? my grandparents' generation was born in the first two decades of the last century, on the maternal side in the rural deeps of Kentucky. Generally speaking, am happy to let family affairs be, in the past; when there are specific questions like this, however, I do miss being able to ask the old ones.
Did smile at Gahrie's comment. :-)
"She has launched her campaign twice. That smells of desperation. She has a lot of baggage that will be easy to exploit."
Obama had baggage to exploit in his reelection campaign. Fast & Furious, Obamacare? I don't recall any of that baggage slowing him down on his march to reelection. But then, he had help from the IRS with those pesky opposition groups, so who knows?
I don't think Republicans could exploit political baggage if they were hired as gorillas for a luggage ad, presented with Samsonite carry-ons full of scandal documentation, or directed towards the overhead bins on the election plane.
Trump is making jokes about Graham on TV, when he could be talking about Hillary. And he leads in the polls. God save the Republic, for it is as good as lost to Hillary, after Obama's eight years of malfeasance in office.
I'm here in the Soviet of Seattle, and I'm not seeing ANY Hillary bumper stickers....maybe, it's early, but I just don't feel the excitement.
I feel the resignation that Hillary will be the Candidate here in Madison.
Post a Comment