Trump wore a lapel pin depicting himself.

Questioned about it, he said "Somebody gave me this. Do you know what that is? That's called a 'Happy Trump.' And considering the fact that I'm never happy—I'm never satisfied. I will never be satisfied until we make America great again. But we're getting pretty close, I'll tell you what. This is called a Happy Trump. Somebody gave it to me. I put it on."

 

And that's that. Somebody gave it to him and he put it on. Wore it on camera. I wonder what other things people could get him to pin onto himself just by giving it to him. He could be pranked so easily. But I suspect that he exercises some judgment about what to pin on himself. 

And who attaches an image of himself to himself/herself?

It happens, mostly entertainment celebrities in T-shirts.

"At one point in his show, he said the real divide in the country was not between rich and poor, Democratic or Republican, but between 'the insane' and 'the insufferable.'"

"The insane include the people who stormed the capitol. He calls them nuts, before adding: 'but fun.' Then he grew more animated describing the insufferable by their 'NPR tote-bag energy' and 'hall monitor' tendencies.... Minhaj... repositions him[self] less as a righteous political comic than a more self-questioning, personal comic, a move he had already begun to make; this scandal may have accelerated the shift...."

Writes Jason Zinoman, in "Was a Scandal the Best Thing to Happen to Hasan Minhaj? At the Beacon, the comic took a different tack after posting a video rebutting a New Yorker article on fabrications in his work. The crowd went wild" (NYT).

Zinoman likes that Minaj isn't "playing the victim," like "seemingly everyone" these days, including Elon Musk and Taylor Swift. And Zinoman, in a sidetrack, praises the filmmaker Kristoffer Borgli, and gives a tip about a new movie I might want to see:

"At its worst her Leslie is a one-note cliché and a clunky Frankenstein’s monster of Jane Fonda in The Morning After, Faye Dunaway in Barfly, and Tilda Swinton in Julia, with just a dash of Nicolas Cage in Leaving Las Vegas."

"Only in a Hollywood community of short attention spans and even shorter memories could anyone look at that performance and not find it awkwardly derivative. It doesn’t help that the film that’s been built around Riseborough is sentimental and phoney when it should be gritty and unapologetic. It’s... a dopey soft-soaped world where Leslie’s alcoholism is a helpful tool for personal growth and provides her with life lessons, a new job and a tearjerking chance to reconcile with her son. Her alcoholism appears so unlikely, in fact, that it seems to exist only to provide Riseborough with a chance, scene after scene, to 'do acting'..."

 
From "Andrea Riseborough doesn’t deserve Oscar nod — Danielle Deadwyler was robbed/The British actress’s performance in To Leslie is a one-note cliché, says the Times film critic Kevin Maher" (London Times).

Riseborough, a white actress, was touted by white actresses, and got a surprise nomination, and Deadwyler, a black actress, was, surprisingly, not nominated. Even though Oscar nominations are campaigned for, this particular campaign is deemed suspect because it worked so well and because it happened to undercut Hollywood's efforts to seem racially inclusive. 

I've assembled 10 TikToks to keep you occupied for the next 10 minutes. Let me know what you like best.

1. This is your pilot speaking.

2. The puppies are not yet ready to play.

3. She's scared to drop in.

4. If you baby-talk, will your friend baby-talk back?

5.  Drew Barrymore really wants you to go out in the rain.

6. Backstage with The Beach Boys.

7. When Sting had to endure the Jose Feliciano version of "I'll Be Watching You."

8. A "Moonstruck" visual.

9. When the Wisconsin man goes to Hawaii.

10. The deadline gave us purpose.

Square pasta and don't get me started on the praying mantis.

Nicolas Cage just did what some say was the best Ask Me Anything ever. Here's the whole thread at Reddit. 

Asked "What's your favourite pasta shape?," he said:

I once went to an Italian restaurant in San Francisco about 25 years ago with Charlie Sheen because they had square tube pasta and he was very interested in trying square tube pasta and we did and we loved it so much we went back the next day to try it again. 

And everyone Googled "square tube pasta."

Asked "Do you like bees?," he said: 

Yes. I would have to say they’re my favorite insect. They make us honey. Bees, and then the firefly. And ants are interesting. Bumble bees are quite adorable. Don't get me started on the praying mantis. I told David Cronenberg once that the praying mantis was the most ferocious of the insects and he so said no, and I said what is, and he said the dragon fly larvae and he said that the beast in the Alien movies was designed after the dragon fly larvae because it shoots its teeth out and when it attacks.

And somebody said, "I think we might need to put 'Don't get me started on the praying mantis' on the banner of the subreddit." 

Asked a more apt question for actor — "Who is your favorite character in all of literature and film?" — he said:

That is so hard to answer. I will say that James Dean’s performance as Cal in East of Eden is largely the reason I became a film actor. His role in that is one of my favorite characters in cinema. But then we can go all the way to Rasputin...

I presume he meant Raskolnikov...

... or we can go to Dmitri Karamazov. Dmitri Karamazov is one my favorite characters in literature. I love him so much because he’s so happy and he has no money. He’s just living it up. He spent all his money trying to get the girl. I did the same thing once. I was very Dmitri Karamazov in high school. The most beautiful girl in high school who was a grade older than me invited me to the prom but I had no money. My grandmother gave each of us a little bond. My older brother bought a car. My second oldest brother bought some stereo equipment. And I splashed out on a chauffeur-driven limousine, a tuxedo and a four course meal at Le Dome on Sunset blvd. The car was $2000, the stereo was $2000, and my prom night was $2000 and man, that was money well spent. THAT’s Dmitri Karamazov.

His favorite movie of all his movies? 

You may have heard that Nicolas Cage will take on the role of Joe Exotic ("Tiger King")...

... Jimmy Fallon takes on the even more challenging role of playing Nicolas Cage playing Tiger King:

I've been avoiding talking about William Barr, but I'm going to link to National Review because the headline sums up what I've been thinking.

"The Incredibly Dumb Bill Barr Scandal."

I haven't read the article. Must I?

Okay, I skimmed it. I have nothing to add except that last night — and not by my own choice — I overheard a lot of what was on CNN and MSNBC. Awful stuff. Some people find it... I don't know... entertaining. I heard one commentator — I wish I could find this now — ranting about how Trump has caused everyone's brains to rot. I thought I could find that clip by searching the last 24 hours of news for "Barr" and "brain," but I only came up with this clip of Hillary Clinton on Rachel Maddow's show:



That Hillary interview was part of the horror show inflicted on me last night. I'm not in the mood to examing the details of why it's a horror show or even why I am avoiding it. The media and the politicians want to set the narrative, but I am the pilot of my own narrative, and I am avoiding it.

ADDED: From that Clinton clip: She says this story is "far from over," and she says it laughing. What about the part of "far from over" that has to do with her role in getting the Russia hoax started? Maybe being out in the spotlight laughing is the best way to hide.

AND: Searching for brain rot, I came up with 2 old stories in Salon, both by Sophia A. McClennen. First, from February 2017, "Beware the Trump brain rot: The cognitive effects of this administration's actions could be disastrous/Democracy isn't all that's at risk under Trump's agenda. There's a 5-point attack happening on our nation's minds."

Stop for a moment, if you will, and attempt to take stock of the various phrases that you and your friends have been throwing out to describe our collective mental state in the Trump era.... ... I asked more than 1,200 people via Facebook and email and received the following list: "wearing me out," "burning me out," "frying my brains," "beyond belief," "turning my mind into mush," "brain overload," "mental meltdown," “crippling depression,” “constant low level dread,” "making me numb," “stressing me out,” “abject horror,” “disoriented and scared” and "scaring me to death." Others offered descriptions such as "nonstop," "overwhelming," "relentless," "mind-blowing," “devastating,” “exasperating” and "surreal." One friend wrote, “I often wake up in the middle of the night thinking about Trump and unable to get back to sleep from anxiety.“ Another simply posted this Nicolas Cage gif.

And from March 2017, "The resistance is all in your head: 6 ways to fight Trump brain rot/Political opposition to Trumpism requires us to be at our cognitive best. Here are 6 ways to prepare your mind." Let me highlight #5:

Experts on keeping your mind strong and sharp... agree that we all need to be good at resting. Stress, depression and insomnia are some of the biggest threats to cognitive health. There is already significant proof that Trump is increasing our nation’s anxiety and depression.... One of Banksy’s famous images is of a girl looking at a bluebird...

MORE: I think what I remembered as "rots your brain" was really "eats your soul," and people were saying that on TV as a result of the James Comey op-ed that had run in the NYT that morning:

[P]roximity to an amoral leader reveals something depressing. I think that’s at least part of what we’ve seen with Bill Barr and Rod Rosenstein. Accomplished people lacking inner strength can’t resist the compromises necessary to survive Mr. Trump and that adds up to something they will never recover from. It takes character like Mr. Mattis’s to avoid the damage, because Mr. Trump eats your soul in small bites.

It starts with your sitting silent while he lies, both in public and private, making you complicit by your silence. In meetings with him, his assertions about what “everyone thinks” and what is “obviously true” wash over you, unchallenged, as they did at our private dinner on Jan. 27, 2017, because he’s the president and he rarely stops talking. As a result, Mr. Trump pulls all of those present into a silent circle of assent.

Speaking rapid-fire with no spot for others to jump into the conversation, Mr. Trump makes everyone a co-conspirator to his preferred set of facts, or delusions. I have felt it — this president building with his words a web of alternative reality and busily wrapping it around all of us in the room.

"Nicolas Cage has said he was 'too drunk' to get married in annulment papers filed four days after he tied the knot in Las Vegas."

"In court documents the actor claims he and now ex-wife Erika Koike were intoxicated and he 'lacked understanding of his actions in marrying [Koike] to the extent that he was incapable of agreeing to the marriage'... 'Prior to obtaining a marriage license and participating in a marriage ceremony, [Cage] and [Koike] were both drinking to the point of intoxication. As a result of his intoxication, when [Koike] suggested to [Cage] that they should marry, [Cage] reacted on impulse and without the ability to recognize or understand the full impact of his actions."

The Daily Mail reports.

I think this is video of the scene of the wedding...



I heard they were like 2 bottles of vodka walking around in human form.

Nicolas Cage outbid Leonardo DiCaprio for a 32-inch-long, 67-million-year-old Tyrannosaurus bataar skull.

He paid $276,000, but turns out it was stolen, and now Cage must send the skull back where it belongs: Mongolia.

“Cultural artifacts such as this Bataar Skull represent a part of Mongolian national cultural heritage,” Glenn Sorge, a special agent with [the United States attorney in Manhattan], said in a statement. “It belongs to the people of Mongolia. These priceless antiquities are not souvenirs to be sold to private collectors or hobbyists.”

ADDED: How is the skull of an animal that died tens of millions of years before there was a Mongolia part of the "Mongolian national cultural heritage"? Mongolia may have a superior claim to the valuable object, and the claim may be based on lofty values of some sort, but it's not a claim based on Mongolian national cultural heritage. Talk about cultural appropriation!

Be careful when attaching your resume to that job-application email.

Don't do this.

Unless you want to be the viral-web celeb du jour.

"The employer got back to me hours later with a short, ‘I’m sorry Vanessa, I don’t see your resume, only a picture of Nic Cage looking terrifying. The position has been filled out, but thanks for being interested'..."

You can freak out quite a lot in 4 minutes and 14 seconds.

A montage of Nicolas Cage (containing a lot of yelling and many iterations of "fuck"):



Via Metafilter.

"Cool it, Fellas! When I'm done let's all get high on the ammonia fumes!!!"

I love the comments thread over at YouTube — the source of the post title.

Cripes! Like they've never seen a white funnel cloud come out of a hot blonde's house!

looks like a 70's porn movie, lol.

:-D Just love that tornado music.

Heh, that one surfer kinda looks like Nicolas Cage! I can remember that tornado (& trippy musical accompaniment) somewhat freaking me out as a child.

I never knew there was a time where a strong ammonia smell was a good thing...

Ha ha. I never knew there would be a time when the stupid things I tried to avoid would be things I would go out of my way to make everyone look at. Or — for insiders only — the things I eschewed would be things I espewed.

***

This post is inspired by the poem wonderful Bissage wrote about the sink rainbow.

The smack in the face.

A teaser for a forthcoming diavlog.

What do you think we're talking about?

ADDED: Glenn Kenny guesses "Chinatown," meaning this:



Is there more famous slapping in the movies? Well, there's Cher slapping Nick Cage in "Moonstruck":



This isn't really slapping:



Nor is this:



Now, this is slapping, but it's not movies, just TV:



But then, I said a "smack in the face." Is that different from a "slap"? Isn't it odd that a "smack" can be a slap or a kiss?

***

There's also this.

AND: Commenter Peano notices something disconcerting:

Cut me a big slice of that ham acting.

Bigger can be better. (Via Throwing Things.) Think Jack Nicholson in "The Shining" and Klaus Kinski in "Aguirre the Wrath of God" and George C. Scott in "Dr. Strangelove." Those are all named in the linked article, and I love them all. What can I add? Jeff Goldblum in "The Fly"! But I hate a lot of ham acting too. I'm still mad at myself for sitting through Nicolas Cage in "Leaving Las Vegas." Just remembering that performance makes me feel a little ill.