Big Lizards:Blog:Entry “At Long Last, Patterico Posts Something Interesting!”

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February 11, 2008

At Long Last, Patterico Posts Something Interesting!

Hatched by Dafydd

Ever since a particular guest blogger moved on to greener and more reptilian pastures, Patterico's Pontifications just hasn't been the same. But there are still flashes of brilliance that recall those glory days of 2005.

Patterico -- I like to call the wife of the Mozart-loving Patterico "Patterica," but he still hasn't figured out why -- finds frequent occasion to point to some goofball blogger named SEK (no, it's not Samuel Edward Konkin the IIIrd, blogging from behind the veil). Grand Master P. seems to think SEK is hilarious (which he probably pronounces George-Will fashion: HIGH-larious); in fact, SEK is about as funny as Al Franken with dyspepsia.

But this -- this -- is funny as all get out. (What does that mean? "As funny as all get out." "Shut the front door!" "What, after the horse has already escaped?" I don't get it.)

And I rib you not, this yolk actually came from Patterico himself. I don't know what came over him; he's not generally known as the Uncle Miltie of the blogosphere. For one thing, Patterico invariably ends every joke he tells with the same punchline ("Is that all you do? Bird impressions?"), no matter what joke he started off telling: "A drunk, a cripple, two Jews, and an ex-Secretary of the Interior went into a bar, and the cripple said -- is that all you do? Bird impressions?"

But somehow, Patterico channeled the disembodied spirit of Jackie Mason this time. Which must have come as a terrible shock to Mr. Mason, who is still sucking air.

Look, first you have to read that thing I linked just above, even though it comes later; Patterico has written a blogpost to the extracting standards of the Los Angeles Times... following the rules they do, rather than the rules they say.

Next, read this explanation, which he posted a minute earlier, for some obscure reason known only to God, Patterico, and Brother Theodore -- and two of them are dead. He (Patterico, not God) explains exactly where he got each particular rule he uses to smear honey on Tim Rutten and bury him in a fire-ant hill (a giggle that Patterico learnt during his two years in seminary school back in Vermont, 1973).

Here is a single, brief snippet from the explanation, just for flavor:

[I]n his latest column, Rutten erroneously claims that, at the beginning of Bush’s presidency, Cheney and his allies “arrived packing heavy artillery” and executed a “coup d’etat.”

Here, I am using the L.A. Times-approved technique of taking a metaphor and pretending that it is an erroneous statement. Rutten does say in his column that, at the outset of Bush’s presidency, “Cheney, his staff and his allies arrived packing heavy artillery in the form of the unitary executive theory.” The “packing heavy artillery” bit was a metaphor. You know, kind of like when Bush, speaking about Iraq, said: “Mandela is dead, because Saddam Hussein killed all the Mandelas.” That was a metaphor too -- but the paper felt justified in calling it an “erroneous[]” statement.

If they can take Bush’s metaphors and call them mistakes, why, I can do it to Tim Rutten. Is that all you do? Bird impressions?

The pair of posts were simply highlarious. I laughed until I stopped! And so will you, if you give them half a chance (i.e., read with your right hand covering you left eye).

I reckon some things will ever change. Thank God.

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, February 11, 2008, at the time of 2:13 AM

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Comments

The following hissed in response by: Patterico

Thanks.

I think.

-- Pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-patterico

The above hissed in response by: Patterico at February 11, 2008 7:01 AM

The following hissed in response by: nk

Please accept my thanks too, Dafydd. I wish SEK had given us the name and address of that liquor store -- it must be the only store in the country that reshelves returned consumables whether "opened" or "unopened". Yet SEK insisted that it was not fiction. Or did he? He only said that he had never taken a creative writing class. And then he switched the subject to journalism. It was not important enough for me to break poor Patterico's heart on his own site by continuing to argue about it.

It was a pretty good story, though. And as Robert Heinlein wrote, "The best stories are not true".

The above hissed in response by: nk at February 11, 2008 9:07 AM

The following hissed in response by: nk

P.S. And regarding *HIGHlarious*, whenever my daughter come back from vacationing with her Florida cousins it takes a while before she stops saying, e.g., "bye-keeni" and "pie-jaamas" and goes back to saying "bkini" and "pjamess" like a well-bred Chicago girl should.

The above hissed in response by: nk at February 11, 2008 9:33 AM