Subject to Change

I would like to send you a DVD you might enjoy. It’s a classic film, about a family dog, named Old Yeller. I believe that this film may be inspirational to you in these trying times. You may find it especially relevant to the developments in Iran and North Korea.

You see, Yeller was a beloved family pet. He brought endless joy to the Coates family. Their lives were enriched by Old Yeller’s love. In a similar way, our lives may be enriched by the cultural experiences Iran and North Korea have to offer. Who doesn’t enjoy a nice Persian rug or dog meat taco now and then?

Unfortunately, Old Yeller falls to an incurable, infectious, and fatal disease. The disease will slowly rot Yeller’s brain and he will eventually turn on those who loved him. The Iranian and North Korean regimes are also rotting their host nations from the inside. Their disease could spread, if not properly contained.

In the movie the eldest boy, Travis, tries to hide Yeller’s illness from the rest of the family. He foolishly believes that the dog is somehow going to cure himself, or he hasn’t got the heart to admit that Yeller is doomed. His decision nearly kills the younger brother, Arliss. Arliss’ love for Yeller is so unconditional and trusting that he is willing to release the dog, even while it is foaming at the mouth and threating to attack. Hey, come to think of it, hasn’t North Korea threatened to attack something? Iran has, too, right?

In the end, do you know how the family deals with Old Yeller’s disease? They shoot the dog. The audience cries a tear and the movie ends with the offspring of Old Yeller romping happily in the meadow with Arliss.

Mr. Obama, put down the damn dog. Please!

Hugs and Kisses,

Aaron

P.S. I really would like to send you this DVD. I just need to ask you one question, so that we can avoid the type of embarrassing moment you had earlier this year: which region code is your DVD player set to?

Have you wondered lately what Jason is up to?

I’ve been wondering ever since Saint Anger.

Hugs and Kisses,

Aaron

I heard yesterday that you’re considering putting in a street car route to boost mass transit ridership. I’ve got to tell you that it won’t work. Trust me!!!

I’m from Milwaukee, where our street car is about a decade old now. To be honest, I don’t even know if we’ve got one anymore. It ran from near the UWM campus to the liquor and gay people parts of town. Is this sounding familiar, Columbus?

If memory serves, trolley fare was originally fifty cents. So, it never made any money. One could assume from the artificially low fare that it was never meant to. One must assume then, that the idea behind the trolley was to boost interest in mass transit or perhaps to encourage tourism. Since the trolley typically runs empty and you’ve obviously never heard of it before, I’d say it failed to do either. It’s not even a topic of interest locally, except when our county executive suggests that we’re losing revenue on the service. That’s the only time anyone notices the blasted thing. We spent all that money on specially decorated busses and signage, and got nothing out of it. On the bright side, we didn’t waste taxpayer money installing a rail system for our street car experiment.

Let me ask you something: what sense does it make to operate a trolley car in a modern city? Wouldn’t driving the thing past the giant, electric marquee on High Street spoil the retro image? Look, I’ve been to the German Village. Parts of this town understand that ambience is an all or nothing affair. You can’t just slap a street car in the middle of downtown and expect it to be a success. What’s going to motivate people to ride it? 

I’m strongly advising you against this poor investment. As usual, my consulting fee is half the dollar amount I’ve saved. I’m eagerly awaiting my check.

Hugs and kisses,

Aaron

We seem to have a serious misunderstanding here. Don’t get me wrong, I’m extremely impressed with all you’ve managed to accomplish this year. I haven’t seen snow mounds as tall as trees in so long that I was starting to believe that the snowfalls of my youth were larger simply because I was smaller.

It’s just that I can’t take any more of this. I know I’ve been griping that we never seem to have any more white Christmases. And, I’m sure you’ve heard me say that I’d really like to get some use out of the snowshoes hanging in my garage. But, I think you need to take a hint from Summer. I’m always promising that I’m going to ride my bike, too, or at least inflate the tires. But, you don’t see Summer hanging around and overstaying its welcome now, do you? Summer barely hangs around long enough for me to work on my watch tan.

Maybe you’re trying to convert some global warming alarmists. Well, I’ve got some bad news for you. It doesn’t matter what you do. They won’t be convinced. If you give us eighty degrees in January, that’s global warming. Minus eighty is “global climate change.” Even if Winter stayed exactly the same ten years in a row that would be bad too, because nature is supposed to have some variations. You can’t get through to them, we’ve been trying for years.

So, Winter, old friend, pal, buddy, piss off already. You’re burning through my wad like a Vegas hooker. I’m sick of cleaning up after you, too. There’s no place left to put all your crap.

Hugs and kisses,

Aaron

P.S. Lick my snowballs.

I understand that you’ll be resigning as president of Cuba.

If the door does hit you in the ass on the way out you may take it with you.

Hugs and kisses,

Aaron 

Dumbledore can’t be gay. He’s a fictional character. It’s like saying a rubber chicken is gay because someone shoved a turkey baster up its butt. That might be a strange thing to do, but it doesn’t make the chicken gay.

Let’s humor you for a moment, though, and assume that you meant to invent a gay character for the Harry Potter series. Somehow through page after page of this enormous creation, you failed to make that point to your own satisfaction. Then, after all the editorial process was complete and the final book released, you decided to make the character gay? Nice going. Don’t you think Dumbledore and The Magic Beanstalk could’ve sold millions of copies? How about highlighting Dumbledore’s struggle, for the youth who might empathize with him? I thought that was what the Harry Potter series was all about: celebrating the underdog.

Waiting until after the series is complete to bring us this big revelation would be like George Lucas suddenly deciding that Jar Jar Binks is a bit fruity. It might answer a lot of questions, but deep down we all knew it anyway. It would do nothing to change the outcome of the story after the fact. Not only that, but you’ve spoiled this for all of the Literature analysts who would’ve been arguing the point long after you’re dead and gone. Future generations won’t have the luxury of asking themselves “is he or isn’t he,” and debating it endlessly for extra credit in school.

And another thing, why gay? Homosexuals have be come the next exploited class. They’re all over TV and movies, thrown in for cheap entertainment. You created an entire magical universe and gay was the best you could do? Tarantino created a character that could only be satisfied by slaughtering pretty young women with his stunt car. You gave us “Dumbledore is gay.” There’s not much creativity in that! How did you ever manage to write eight billion pages that people would read?

Congratulations on your success, Ms. Rowling. Please don’t let it go to your head.

Hugs and kisses,

Aaron

Dear Bubba,

You will be getting a new roommate soon. His name is Michael McGee Jr., or Michael Jackson. To be honest, we’re not really sure what his legal name is. You see, Michael is a shady character. Until recently he actually had two driver’s licenses, two social security numbers, and a mistress or two.

Mr. McGee was a Milwaukee alderman, until his bad behavior landed him in the bunk under yours. He has a history of violent outbursts and diarrhea of the mouth. He has openly threatened violence against his opponents, going so far as to turn to his supporters to fear-monger the people who stand up against him. Some physical attacks and fire bombings have even taken place. Most recently, the former alderman declared war on the entire city of Milwaukee. We have yet to see what he meant by that.

Perhaps you’re wondering how a man like McGee, who has gotten away with so much for so long, finally found himself under your gentle care. Well, The Alderman took his reign of terror just a little too far. He abused his position of power to take advantage of the people in his district. I imagine that if you met his constituents, they might remind you of home. They’re people much like yourself, struggling to make it in a rough neighborhood. But, The Alderman was greedy. He shook them down and took their hard earned money in return for political favors.

Luckily for the people of his district, at least two brave souls decided to stand up for themselves and their community. They turned to the authorities, who worked to catch Mr. McGee in the act. The rest, as they say, is history.

Please take good care of Michael. He deserves the best.

Thank you,

Concerned neighbor

P.S. Michael is extremely homophobic. It may be difficult for him on the inside. Please see that his prison time passes as comfortably as possible.

It’s time to call a truce. End the war to produce the most ridiculous box design. You’re pissing me off!

Come on, you’re impressing no one but yourself with this baloney.

And, who could forget this fiasco?

Just give us a plain-old ordinary box that doesn’t require a degree in origami to operate. Pretty please???

Yours Truly,
Aaron

In response to your comments:

First off, I never would’ve guessed that a five-sentence critique would warrant a 500-word missive on your part.

It wasn’t only for your benefit. You simply provided the opportunity to remind people what we’re doing. There is one word each for everyone who doesn’t get it. TR has already picked his. What’s yours?

I’m fine with your podcast, dude. Chill out. Think of my criticism as being sarcastic, but constructive.

Not so sure it was constructive, but the rest of it I got. You screw with me, I screw with you. No biggie.

It’d have been nice if in those 45 minutes someone could’ve, I don’t know, called bullshit once or twice or asked Poor Man’s Foti a few real questions. Instead, we got a long-winded narrative of JK’s life (I’m sure that’ll be on the bookshelves at B&N soon), some dragged-out hypothetical about orange car seats, and a weak take on the fall elections.

This is my style. I don’t really care much about what you can hear by reading the paper or turning on the TV. I want to have discussions about things that amuse me. My blog is for my entertainment only. Everyone else who enjoys it is welcome.

If you’re expecting me to ask tough questions, it’ll probably never happen. My interests are my job, my house, and surfing the internet. I’m a headline scanner, and I’m not documenting everything that goes on. I tapped Jenna for her political awareness. I do all of this for fun.

And apparently Jenna wants to marry him because he answers his own constituent mail. Ugh.

I respect that, too. Should I vote for of against the gay marriage amendment?

Can you find me a democrat legislator who’s so responsive? I’ll compliment them, too.

Perhaps you could’ve tried some of the following:

- What’s the Assembly Republican Caucus like now without Scott Jensen around to lead the troops?

Good ideas. I wish I’d thought of the second one, actually. Want to join us? Maybe we can get Joel back, if you promise not to get snide. I warn Jenna not to get nasty sometimes, because I want ALL guests to feel generally safe on the podcast. I don’t mind asking questions that our guests may not like, but I don’t want to waste time on shouting matches and finger pointing.

-You’ve developed a reputation in the building for kissing up to leadership and never straying from thet party line on anything. Care to comment?

Me? Listen to podcast #9, about abortion. You’ll hear some serious waffling.

- If you’re such a big believer in diversity of opinion in the blogosphere, why were you part of the crowd trying to get suspected Capitol bloggers fired six or seven months ago? Afraid of a little internal criticism of a do-nothing caucus and its lackluster agenda?

Who’s doing what now??? Are you asking me that question? I haven’t got time to get that involved. Have you seen how active my campaign against child predators has been lately?

There you go. This listener would like more Tim Russert and less Matt Lauer. But it’s your show, and you’re right. If things don’t change, I’ll probably stop listening and that’ll be that. Different strokes for different folks, right?

Carry on.

Right. Look, we welcome people to get involved. Do you want to be given a shot at helping out with our material? We’ve recently asked Sean, of the American Mind, to help manage and develop the guest list.

I’ve got a day job that gets in the way of actually spending the time this thing needs. And, I’m an engineer by trade, not a Madison staffer. We definitely need some people! I go on what I know, which as TR has pointed out is very little.

- RS

P.S. Supervising 132 children is hard work, but you’d be welcome to try for a week. I need a vacation.

No thanks. I hate office politics.
I wasn’t questioning your ability to do your job.

Note to TR: The Recess Supervisor offered a much more useful response. Perhaps next time you should let him do the talking?

I enjoyed your review of GPL Podcast #24. It’s apparent to me, however, that you may not actually understand what this podcast is all about. Allow me to instruct you in GPL Podcast 101. The GPL podcast is accessible to everybody. We encourage anyone with an entertaining topic to contact us.

So, if you are offended by our guests or our choice of topics I invite you to step up to the plate. If you’re going to be taking a swing at us anyway, you may as well try and knock one out of the park. Here are some things you can do if we are not serving your listening needs:

1. Join us on the podcast. We’ll do a show about things that interest you.
2. Help us get guests. Perhaps you would have better luck lining up liberal guests. We’ve tried and they are generally non responsive. We’ll interview anyone who can be entertaining for at least 15 minutes: you, your favorite politician, even your mother if you like. Here’s an extra credit assignment for you: we’d love to get Kathleen and Peg on the program, to complete our discussion on the Attorney General race.
3. Do your own show! I’ve said that I will open up my equipment for anyone who wants to take a whack at it. If you want to see if you can do this thing better, be my guest!

If all else fails, stop listening. Seriously, we will make every effort to please as many people as possible. If you can’t find a way to enjoy the show after trying all the steps I’ve listed, then perhaps the podcast isn’t your cup of tea. And, if you choose not to get involved, after I’ve begged you to do so, then I don’t see that you have any authority to complain.

Now, regarding our guest this week and the choice of topics: we didn’t plan out this podcast for a purpose. In fact, we didn’t plan any better than we have with any of the previous podcasts. The assemblyman contacted us because he’d heard that we were struggling to find guests this summer. We’re always excited to talk with people in the public eye. I wanted to keep the subject matter light because Joel Kleefisch is the only politician I know who is willing to talk with bloggers the way he did with us. I wanted the atmosphere to be relaxed because I am just an everyday dude, after all.

One final note: are you sure that comparing Jenna to Monica Lewinsky is sending the right message? Sure, Monica has some baggage, but she is the person who put Bill Clinton in the history books. Without her, what could we remember him for?

Later, dude!

Aaron

P.S. Apologies to Kathleen Falk. I’ve never claimed that this blog is always on the ball.