"wHy cAn'T wE Do tHaT?"

1. Because it's a stupidly dangerous idea
2. Because a nuclear bomb would need to be surrounded by tons of additional air that we have no way of moving on that scale to affect just the eye of a hurricane
3. Because a hurricane's tradewinds would spread the nuclear fallout on a far more massive scale over water and land and create catastrophic environmental devastation
4. Because the idea was first presented and quickly shot down in 1959 for these very reasons
5. BECAUSE A RUDIMENTARY GOOGLE SEARCH WOULD TELL YOU THIS FASTER THAN YOU COULD SPUTTER OUT THE DUMBASS GIBBERISH IN THIS QUOTE

The fucking dipshit ACTUALLY SAID THIS

“The Continental Army suffered a bitter winter of Valley Forge, found glory across the waters of the Delaware and seized victory from Cornwallis at Yorktown. Our Army MANNED THE AIR, it rammed the ramparts, IT TOOK OVER AIRPORTS, it did everything it had to do and at Ft. McHenry under the rocket’s red glare had nothing but victory. When dawn came, the star-spangled banner waved defiant.”

—Stable Genius, July 4, 2019

FINAL DEBATE TAKEAWAYS:

• Pete is the co-winner with his calming, authoritative presence and genuine affability
• Kamala is the co-winner with her commanding presence and emotional connection
• Bernie and Biden seem like yelly old men
• Eric Swalwell: I’m 100% on board with your assault-weapon-buyback proposal
• “Two words down the line” means TWO WORDS
• Shut up, Bernie
• Just shut up
• Marianne Williamson: You’re just ... odd
• I’m officially tired of old politicians. Bring on the young people and their fresh perspectives and ideas for fixing what the old folks can’t seem to stop fucking up!
• Shut up, Bernie
• 19 Democratic candidates. If there’s one good thing that stable genius has accomplished, it’s inspiring this wave of young, smart, skilled, competent people who all seem genuinely committed to repairing and reinvigorating our tattered country
• Kamala: Nice plug for your web site!
• Pete: Your closing statement is just ... everything

As usual, my friend Dale nails it

“I see it in the Facebook feeds today and hear it in the locker room all of the time, you know the 'both parties are wrong, all politicians are crooks'. Nope sorry, not having it, there are differences. Let’s just talk about El Presidente, I mean Individual One. How about: attacks the Intelligence services, praise dictators, sides with White Nationalists, fails to disavow the KKK, attacks women based on their weight and looks, uses twitter to conduct foreign policy, asks foreign enemies to hack into a Presidential candidate’s email, fabricates a racist story about the former President’s birthplace (birtherism) , already has played more than 138% more golf than Obama, failure to criticize the Saudi Prince for the killing of an American journalist, on pace to beat Obama’s travel record (bigly), failed to release his taxes like he said he would, Trump’s use of Executive Orders, lied about Inauguration crowd size, lied on his business dealings with Russia, said Mexico would pay for the wall and then claimed he never said it, criticized a former decorated Prisoner of War, criticized the family of a deceased Gold Star family, criticized Navy admiral, William H. McRaven the former Navy SEAL commander who oversaw the mission to kill Osama Bin Laden, talk of grabbing women by their genitals, made fun of reporter with disabilities, attacks the media daily, pulling out of International Treaties on Climate Change, Nuclear weapons, and International Trade, attacked a Judge because of his ethnicity, virtually curtailed press conferences, large swaths of executive time, wait I almost forgot about lying about paying off porn stars and now a fake National emergency. I mean what will it take? This is your guy? Thirty-six indictments, nine guilty pleas so far, campaign chair going to jail for the rest of his life. These are all great guys, the kind you want running the country, right? Please don't say both sides do it ever again...this is not apples to apples, this is comparing apples to treason. There are differences and they matter."

Howard Dean: Demanding a border wall “is a ridiculous argument by a ridiculous person who’s pretending to be the president of the United States”

Howard is in FULL-NO-BULLSHIT MODE tonight. And Chris Cuomo needs to stop smoldering at me through my TV and propose already.

"The Iowa Public Radio fall fund drive is over."

The nine most beautiful words in the English language.

Flashback Wednesday: Sheer, Abject Terror Edition

"Rappel down the side of a 31-story building," I said. "It'll be fun," I said. "Plus it'll give me an interesting story to tell everyone," I said.

"Just lean back off the roof and hold onto these alarmingly tiny ropes that we guarantee won't snap and send you plummeting to your death," they said. "Look around and enjoy the view that very few people get to see," they said. "Keep yourself horizontal to the building," they said.

"STOP SHAKING YOUR DAMN LEGS. YOU LOOK LIKE A LOW-RENT ELVIS IMPERSONATOR," they said. "GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER OR WE WON'T LET YOU RAPPEL," they said.

"I've taken the training and paid the money and I'm not giving up now," I said. "I won't look down at the pavement where I could easily splat and die in abject terror," I said. "I won't look down at the pavement where I could easily splat and die in abject terror," I said. "I won't look down at the pavement where I could easily splat and die in abject terror," I said.

"Here I go, shakes and terror and all," I said.

"Holy shit I hate this I hate this I hate this eyes on the ropes squeeze your hands hard don't look down don't look down to hell with looking around at the view I hate this I hate this I hate this is it over yet," I said.

"Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee," I said.

Yes, I literally made the noise "Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee" all the way down the building.

"I'M BACK ON SOLID GROUND AND IT'S FINALLY OVER," I said. "I AM NEVER NEVER NEVER DOING THIS AGAIN," I said. "I HAVE NEVER BEEN SO FUCKING SCARED IN MY ENTIRE LIFE," I said.

"I NEED ALCOHOL," I said.

Yes, I really said "I NEED ALCOHOL" because I was still shaking in my legs and tummy and though I've barely had any alcohol in my life and I had no idea what an entire drink would do to me, I WANTED SOME DAMN ALCOHOL.

"I'll have a Tom Collins," I said to the waiter. Because someone recommended it and it sounded interesting.

I drank my Tom Collins, still shaking in my legs and tummy. And it was GOOD.

The end.

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Look out at the water

We just finished up a lovely picnic in a charming rough-hewn pavilion in historic Bever Park as a thank-you to a group of First Lutheran members who volunteer at the Higley Care Center. And by “lovely” I mean “HOLY SHIT IT’S RAINING SO VIOLENTLY WE’RE ALL GONNA DROWN AND FLOAT AWAY AND MEET OUR WATERY DEMISE IN A FILTHY RAIN-GORGED SEWER but it’s still lovely.”

The deluge was so catastrophic that a drowned-rat jogger ducked into the far end of our pavilion as we were setting up, and my dad—being my dad—immediately went over to him to offer him some coffee, which he accepted so I poured him a cup and handed it to him and OH MY GOD YOUR EYES AND YOUR ATHLETIC CHEST VACUUM-SEALED IN YOUR DRENCHED T-SHIRT WHAT’S YOUR NAME OH IT’S BEN SHY GIGGLE DON’T EMBARRASS YOURSELF JAKE SO HOW FAR ARE YOU RUNNING TODAY BEN THREE MILES WHAT A COINCIDENCE THREE IS MY FAVORITE NUMBER IT’S ONE MORE THAN YOUR TWO ATHLETIC PECS YOU KNOW WHAT ELSE WE HAVE IN COMMON BEN IT’S THE DISTRACTING FACT THAT NEITHER OF US HAS A WEDDING RING WHAT AN INTERESTING COINCIDENCE SO HAVE SOME MORE AWKWARD FLIRTING I MEAN HAVE SOME MORE COFFEE WELL DARN THE RAIN IS LETTING UP AND I SEE YOU’RE ABOUT TO CONTINUE YOUR RUN COME ON BACK FOR SOME MORE AWKWARD FLIRTING I MEAN COME ON BACK FOR SOME BREAKFAST BYE BEN I’LL MISS YOU WHY AM I YELLING OH RIGHT BECAUSE YELLING IS THE OPPOSITE OF NOT-AWKWARD FLIRTING WELL DARN YOU’RE GONE.

Oh—and this tree could totally play Dot in Sunday in the Park with George:

September morn

We danced until the night
Became a brand new day.
Two lovers playing scenes
From some romantic play.
September morning
Still can make me feel that way.

With a little bit of practice and with a lot of Tuesday-night concentration, we just got all of “With a Little Bit of Luck” choreographed!

(Now a-lot-of-sick Bryant needs to get a lot of better so we can teach it to him.)

Just Another Day

91.7 fm just said “we all know that Haydn was the father of the string quartet"

which made my hair stand up in surprise like in the cartoons because REALLY, 91.7 fm? Did you ask EVERYBODY? And have you done a DNA paternity test? No and no.

But we all DO know that it’s blergy early and just on the warm side of perfect weather and I’m so hopped up on Gu and 5-Hour Energy that I’m shaking—or maybe I’m shaking in anger over 91.7 fm’s blanket-statement reporting—but in any case I’m clearly working overtime to make this Haydn joke work so I’m gonna take my shaky blergy energy and run 7 miles before it gets too warm.

She had it comin'

Swear not by the clouds, the inconstant clouds ...

So the moon was shining through this amorphous, stunningly dimensional opening in the clouds tonight while I was pouring a bottle of long-expired store-brand mango-pear-flavored sparkling water in the yew by the garage (because if I poured it directly on the ground it would splash on my shoe by the garage) so I could recycle the bottle to protect the environment but by the time I put the bottle down and got my phone out and turned off the flash because everyone knows you can’t photograph the night sky with your flash on the amorphous opening had morphed into something less stunningly dimensional and less moon-shine-throughy but I had my phone out and my flash turned off anyway because again everyone knows you can’t photograph the night sky with your flash on so I tried to artfully frame the rapidly disappearing amorphous hole of stunning moonlight between some handy nearby treetops and I took the picture anyway and it’s not great or artistic or even remotely as beautiful as the shining, amorphous, stunningly dimensional celestial event I saw in the sky in the first place but despite my rush to get out my phone and turn off my flash because as I’ve said repeatedly now everyone knows you can’t photograph the night sky with your flash on I didn’t get even a drop of long-expired store-brand mango-pear-flavored sparking water splashed on my shoe by the yew so I count the entire sequence of events as both an artistic and an environmental win.

Today's Moment Of Pure Ridiculous Joy: "I Just Wanna Dance"

Fun fact: There is a 2001 three-act opera exploring, parodying, mocking and even sympathizingly understanding the cultural underpinnings and social normalizations of The Jerry Springer Show. It is called (if you can even believe this name wasn’t already taken) Jerry Springer: The Opera.

Its breakout song—at least for gay men at massive circuit parties in the early 2000s—was “I Just Wanna Dance,” in which a stripper who is done being belittled and called a whore takes ownership of the actions and choices her circumstances have offered her and proclaims “I’m tired of all this trying / I wanna do some living / ‘Cos I’ve done enough dying / I just wanna dance / I just wanna fucking dance!”

Yes, there is swearing. It’s about JERRY SPRINGER.

But back to us gays and our massive circuit parties (which are massively massive dance parties with laser light shows, rampant shirtlessness, speakers the size of industrial refrigerators and deafening remixes of awesome dance songs, with the exception of Madonna’s appalling rendition of “Don’t Cry For Me, Argentina,” which is in every conceivable on this and all other planets way the polar opposite of awesome and you are to NEVER MENTION AGAIN). Anyway, we gays OF COURSE made many deafening remixes of “I Just Wanna Dance,” which is an awesome dance song. Plus it’s about wanting to dance. TOTAL TWOFER.

Speaking of twofers, here’s one of the remixes paired with dance clips from every awesome genre of awesome movie musical from West Side Story to Xanadu. IT. IS. SO. AWESOME. Watch it. Love it. Sing along with it. If it doesn’t make you wanna be gay, it will at the very least make you wanna dance. I mean wanna FUCKING dance!

Hillary said this two years ago

and Stable Genius’ “presidency” has indeed proven to be nothing but a relentless series of bizarre rants, personal feuds and outright lies:

“Donald Trump's ideas aren't just different. They're dangerously incoherent. They're not even really ideas - just a series of bizarre rants, personal feuds and outright lies. He's not just unprepared; he is temperamentally unfit to hold an office that requires knowledge, stability and immense responsibility."

Things that sound like ethnic slurs but are really just the names of weird props that you can hear someone say at a Fuddy Meers tech rehearsal:

“Where’s the shovel slapper?”

So tap class was literally up a steep and very narrow stairway / to the feet like a rhythmically contrapuntal metronome

The front desk guard at the Broadway Dance Center gave me a disapproving smirk when I took this selfie, no doubt because of my dumbass-tourist T-shirt emblazoned with a massive NYC. But I more or less rocked the class, so it gets a big happy, paradiddly bucket-list checkmark.

#HowToTurn50 #AndTapLikeABOSS

And so it’s here: the last night of my 40s

I feel like that ominous, grainy photo of the Titanic sailing away from the White Star Dock in Southampton that’s always accompanied by a caption saying something about it being the last time the ship would ever see land. I was born at 6:30 am, so when I close my eyes tonight it will be the last time I see my bedroom as a 49-year-old because by the time I wake up I’ll be 50.

Turning 50 is bugging me WAY beyond the expected complaints of a certain age milestone making someone feel old. I know I’m not the only person to turn 50 or to feel profoundly older because of it ... and I’m certainly not the first person to complain about it. But 50 brings with it a mathematical sense of mortality that even 49 didn’t: I’m well over halfway done living my life. But I don’t feel like I’ve even STARTED living it by most measures. There’s so much about living that I worry I haven’t even started thinking about, much less doing ... even though I’ve consciously and purposefully been living by the motto “someday just began”—meaning someday is here, so stop putting things off (like tattooing “someday just began” inside your arm where you can easily see it) until some far-off-procrastination someday—for well over two decades.

So in that spirit—and flying in the face of the defeated spirit of the 50-year-old man I desperately don’t want to be—I’ve mapped out a pretty rigorous Summer Of Running Away From Being 50 that includes multiple vacations to favorite destinations including New York City and Washington, D.C., and multiple races including two half marathons, the second of which winds through the parks of my beloved Walt Disney World in November.

So tomorrow’s my new someday. The beginning of my sixth decade. The dawn of my summer-long celebration of that milestone. The onyourmarksgetsetGO! of my sprint toward everything that awaits me between here and 60.

And the moment I wake up tomorrow, it’s only just begun.

#HowToTurn50

EVERY CALLER EVER TO CALL NPR/WBEZ'S ON POINT:

[audio delay] [extra pause just to set the sage for sounding stupid] Hello! Um ... ah ... thanks for ta ... I love your show and thanks for taking my call ... so I just have one thi ... well, two things so I'll make it quick ... um ... ah ... thanks for taking my call ... so in regards to what the last person just said ... and I'll be real quick about thi ... um ... ah ... I have no idea what I'm talking about ... and I've made no effort to educate myself beyond my own insular experience ... it's a miracle I'm even listening to this show today ... and it's an even bigger miracle that I've taken the initiative to listen for your phone number in the middle of all my not paying attention ... um ... ah ... but I'm going to sound off anyway ... thanks for taking my call ... and I'll be real quick about this ...