King Frederik Twitter.

I will continue referring to him as King Frederik Twitter of Denmark. https://t.co/2Y1ecI0xua

— Michael Ian Black (@michaelianblack) January 4, 2024

Hipster Trumpism.

I was never a big "Trump guy" but the way the media is treating him like he's some kind of criminal makes me want to go out and vote for the guy again.

— Michael Ian Black (@michaelianblack) August 23, 2022

ADDED: The post title is based on the old concept "hipster racism." Remember "hipster racism"?

Carmen Van Kerckhove coined the term hipster racism in the article "The 10 Biggest Race and Pop Culture Trends of 2006", citing "Kill Whitey" Parties and "Blackface Jesus" as examples. "Kill Whitey" parties, as described by The Washington Post, were parties held for hipsters in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, by Jeremy Parker, a disc jockey who goes by the name The Pumpsta, in an attempt to "kill the whiteness inside". These were parties in which white hipsters mocked the black hip-hop industry, and essentially a part of African-American culture, for the sake of irony. Van Kerckhove also regarded the use of blackface by white people and the normalization and acceptance of such use from other individuals as hipster racism....

There was also "hipster sexism," circa 2012: 

Can the cop cry?

I'm going to take a contrarian position on this: a lot of us have tremendous stress in our lives right now and it comes out in different ways. We're assuming the worst about her just like she's assuming the worst of McDonalds. No need to shame her. https://t.co/hQkhnisQoM

— Michael Ian Black (@michaelianblack) June 17, 2020

The comedian Michael Ian Black takes a lot of heat for expressing happiness at the prospect of redemption for Louis C.K.

Will take heat for this, but people have to be allowed to serve their time and move on with their lives. I don't know if it's been long enough, or his career will recover, or if people will have him back, but I'm happy to see him try. https://t.co/QmqdGJnIjy

— Michael Ian Black (@michaelianblack) August 28, 2018

I like Michael Ian Black — you may remember him from "The State" and other TV comedy — and I follow him on Twitter, where, as you see above, he posted about the same news story that I blogged earlier this morning. He predicts backlash, and he's getting it. Some screen shots (click to enlarge):

"Deeper even than the gun problem is this: boys are broken."

From Michael Ian Black (whom I follow on Twitter)(click to enlarge and read):



The last line there is: "Even talking about this topic invites ridicule because it’s so scary for most men (and women). Men are adrift and nobody is talking about it and nobody’s doing anything about it and it’s killing us."

And in fact people are ridiculing him.

I found MIB's tweets via The Washington Examiner, "When it comes to boys, Michael Ian Black is kind of right, but mostly wrong."

Why aren't there some great anti-Trump humor books?

I was curious about the continuing sales of Milo Yiannopoulos's book (which isn't out until June 13th*). Looking around, I stumbled into Amazon's Best Sellers in Political Humor:



I'm not surprised to see 3 versions of Milo's book hogging the top row. What shocks me is that there's nothing really happening in what I would have thought was the rich field of anti-Trump humor. There are 2 books. One is just a compilation of Doonesbury strips from the past 30 years, and it came out last July, before the "pussy" recording, before the winning of the election. Essence of old and out of date. The other one is also from last July, "A Child's First Book of Trump." Cute enough...



... but where's anything even slightly up-to-date? Where's something that deals with Trump's success, something that takes him on without assuming he's a such an easy target that the laughs are already implicitly there? Two of the next 4 books on the list are about historical figures like George Washington. The one about "The Daily Show" is a history of a humor show, not new humor at all. And the Bill Bryson book came out in 1996 (and is about traveling through England).

If you go to the link and keep scrolling, you'll have to go to #21 to find another Trump book (and it's a trifle, "The Trump Coloring Book," from December 2015, probably intended as a joke gift, with Trump in a Superman costume on the cover).  Keep scrolling, and you'll find the next Trump item at #30, "2017 Donald Trump Out of Office Countdown Wall Calendar" (which isn't a book). Then there's something like "Trump Memes" around 40, and at #66 "Not My F*cking President" (and it's another fucking coloring book).

What's up, hilarious Trump haters? Where are the books?!
_________________________

* That's one day before Donald Trump's birthday, as I learned from Trump's speech at the rally yesterday. Maybe I'd heard about his birthday before, but I don't remember, and it made us perk up with what felt like new information: His birthday is on Flag Day. Interesting that he's never made a thing out of Born on Flag Day (which is close to the old brag "born on the 4th of July").

Some people think Donald Trump is a compulsive braggart, but the absence of bragging is hard to see, so I'm pointing it out. Now, there's good reason not to brag about the date of your birth: Show me the unborn child who even knows the date and I will humor your fantasy that this naive entity may have a plan to resist expulsion from the maternal enclosure or burst forth early to claim a desirable day for his birthday.

And it's not effective to say you're more of a patriot because of your birthday when your message is let's all be very patriotic together. Here, from the transcript, is how Trump dropped the reference to his Flag Day birthday:

The dishonest media... have their own agenda and their agenda is not your agenda. In fact, Thomas Jefferson said, “nothing can be believed which is seen in a newspaper.” “Truth itself,” he said, “becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle,” that was June 14, my birthday, 1807. 

But maybe he was subtly nudging us to think that patriotic holiday birthday means something. He'd just highlighted Thomas Jefferson, the person most famous for being born dying on an American patriotic holiday. But Jefferson didn't call attention to the fact himself. He wrote: "The only birthday I ever commemorate is that of our Independence, the Fourth of July."

"I put no stock in 'portents' and 'vibes,' but I can't help wondering if what's happened already this cycle is just a hint of what's to come."

Tweets Jeff Greenfield, the longtime political analyst and author of 13 books.

I can't remember the last time I laughed so much at something that I found funny precisely because of the seriousness with which it was intended.

If you know the podcast "Topics," by the comedians Michael Showalter and Michael Ian Black, you should understand what I mean when I say that "Topics" is hilarious because of people like Jeff Greenfield.

I'm catching up on the podcast "Topics."

May I recommend "The Little Things":

In Episode 1 of Season 3, Michael and Michael are back in the saddle to discuss “The Little Things.” Their conversation covers everything from butter on toast, to taking a drive and listening to some classical music, to apple picking in Autumn with your family.

"Maybe I'm naive, but I still don't think Lance doped."

Michael Ian Black.

"Ugh: really torn about which presidential ticket to vote for based on body fat percentage."

Ugh: really torn about which presidential ticket to vote for based on body fat percentage.
— Michael Ian Black (@michaelianblack) August 21, 2012

Ah! That takes me back! My first ever political post, on the second day of this blog, January 15, 2004:

Our local free tabloid, The Isthmus, has a nice set of columns comparing the Democratic candidates for President.

Hmmm.... "Little known fact: at 59, Wesley Clark has only 5% body fat."

Christopher asks, "Should it be Wesley Clark is 5% body fat?"

The link didn't go to the article in the Isthmus. I wasn't reading the article on line, but on newsprint. The link went to the entry in the Philosophical Dictionary to the "mind-body problem." Chris's question wasn't political, but philosophical (and linguistic). The Philosophical Dictionary link has died though, so I'm replacing it with the Wikipedia entry on the mind-body problem.

Now, I'm clicking back sequentially through those oldest posts: the first post about art, the first post about suicide, the first post about law, the first and second post about hair, the first post about language usage, and the first post (about blogging).

"Barry, baby, you see what I got here... Why, this is a box of pudding, Barry."

"It says 'cook and chill' and, baby, that's what I do every night. I cook and then I chill."

$240 Worth of Pudding - watch more funny videos

That's Thomas Lennon and Michael Ian Black playing Barry and Levon on the early 90s MTV show "The State." The music was originally Marvin Gaye's "Sexual Healing," but the DVD of the series did not get the rights to the music. Unfortunately, that means the voices had to be overdubbed too. So this should actually be much funnier. But anyway, I was just thinking about this clip this morning. You don't have to worry your pretty little head about why.

Now why is it that I can't just enjoy my pudding?

"I'm dreading watching the skit where Michael Ian Black walks down the street in his underwear to some song other than the Breeders' 'Cannonball'..."

"... I might need to mute the TV and listen to it on my iPod for that skit. It was one of the first things that got me interested in rock music."

1. What first got you interested in rock music? Probably not "Cannonball"/underwear, but surely it was something.

2. Did you used to watch "The State" on MTV? Did you know you can buy it now on DVD (but not necessarily with the same songs on the the soundtrack)?

3. Do you understand exactly what made "The State" so funny? (Analysis and "The Jew, the Italian, and the Redhead Gay" at the link.)