Remember that New Yorker cover as Barack and Michelle Obama as terrorists in the Oval Office? At the time, I sided with Jack Shafer, who wrote, "Although every critic of the New Yorker understood the simple satire of the cover, the most fretful of them worried that the illustration would be misread by the ignorant masses who don't subscribe to the magazine." Shafer mocked Jake Tapper for writing, "No Upper East Side liberal—no matter how superior they feel their intellect is—should assume that just because they're mocking such ridiculousness, the illustration won't feed into the same beast in emails and other media. It's a recruitment poster for the right-wing."

Shafer's point was that, "Calling on the press to protect the common man from the potential corruptions of satire is a strange, paternalistic assignment for any journalist to give his peers," and he was absolutely right about that. But it must be said that he, and I, were a little too quick to smirk at the idea that anyone would miss such an obvious (and not particularly funny) joke.

You see, it turns out that those racist Obama Bucks we talked about a couple of days ago actually got their start as a joke about racist Republicans.

Tim Kastelein is a 31-year-old Minnesota Democrat with a penchant for sophomoric, often-grotesque humor and an acid tongue that derides everyone from overweight women to the local real estate agent who delivers advertising mailers...Kastelein, who received a low-level organizing position within the Democratic Party in Minnesota earlier this year, said he meant the cartoon as a satirical look at "right-wingers." He said he created the image to lampoon Republicans who are afraid of government welfare programs and fearful of a Democratic president.

The illustration went viral, stripped of the context of Kastelein's blog, and got picked up by one of those right-wingers, Diane Fedele (who just resigned over the incident).

Had I foreseen, back in July, the depths that John McCain and his supporters would stoop to, I might have tempered my comments on the New Yorker cover. (I'm cool with acknowledging my lack of prescience here because, as Vance recently pointed out, on Sept. 4, I alone pronounced Sarah Palin's convention speech a meaningless performance that would not prevent the country from eventually rejecting her as ridiculously unqualified.)

But here's the quote from Kastelein that really got my attention: "I don't write my Web site for people like (Fedele). I write my Web site for people like me."

That's pretty much my philosophy. I've called Obama an anti-American gay Muslim more times than I can count, because I know you'll get the joke -- and if some people don't, I don't really care. But every now and then I wonder what would happen if I ended up in Kastelein's position, and found my blog scrutinized by clueless outsiders. I mean, some stuff here could seriously be taken the wrong way.

4:45 PM :: Comments (4)

"I didn't see it [as racist]. I never connected. It was just food to me. It didn't mean anything else." —Diane Fedele, president of Chaffey Community Republican Women and creator of Obama Bucks.

“There’s a real problem in what’s called the ‘white movement.’ One, there’s a lot of people who are just mentally ill, and we deal with those a lot. No. 2, there are people who have serious sexual problems.” —Bill White, head of the American Nazi party.

9:57 AM :: Comments (5)

The Sock Obama. My first guess was that it's just Prussian Blue having some fun with Photoshop, but according to New York Brit, there's an actual Sock Obama company registered to Utah Republican David J. Lawson.

Suddenly Obama's Fight the Smears site looks a little naive, doesn't it?

Update: Functional Ambivalent is the next David Alexrod.

...fully cognizant of how offensive it is to depict black people as monkeys, I think this would be an excellent moment for Barack Obama to make campaign points by reacting with humor. A smiling, slightly derisive photo op would go a long way toward showing that he's not going to go all Stokely Carmichael once he's in office. There are actually people who worry about that, and this would be a nice moment to show a little post-racial humanity.

Also, stop harassing the real estate agent. It's a common name!

3:09 PM :: Comments (13)

From late 2004 until at least a few months ago, doing a Google search for Huckapoo would return a link to my exhaustive (and exhausting!) coverage of that band somewhere in the top five results (the exact position alternating with the band's official site, its MySpace page, Wikipedia entry and my New York magazine feature).

Today I discovered that my Huckapoo coverage has been demoted to result number 603. That's right: there are 602 better sources of information about Huckapoo on the internets than Radosh.net, including Les artistes dont la premiere lettre est H.

Now, the upside of scrolling through seven pages of Huckapoo results is that I discovered the previously hidden photographic gem above (see two more from the set here). But the downside is, what the fuck happened over at Google?

Seriously, someone with some tech savvy needs to explain to me why or how my site has been blacklisted as a source for Huckapoo information — which surely someone other than me still looks for now and then.

Clues to this mystery after the jump.

Continue reading "It's a Huckanspiracy!" »

1:37 PM :: Comments (15)

Remember Prussian Blue, the White Power Pop duo you first read about here and who later went on to become a media, if not musical, phenomenon? Back when, several commenters noted that when they hit their teens, there'd be, in Vance's words, "a teen rebellion phase so intense as to... blast the swastika off the proverbial horse."

Get ready. Jezebel has a clip from a new British documentary in which Lamb and Lynx, now 15, begin distancing themselves from all that racism stuff, to the horror of their shrewish, batshit crazy mom — who at one point calls Lynx a "cunt." Isn't British TV awesome?

The longer excerpts on YouTube temper Jezebel's optimism a bit. From the few minutes I watched, it seems that the girls have some way to go before they can officially be considered redeemed. It's possible mom's vision for the band will ultimately win out. Do the girls even have enough talent to draw an audience not based on ideology? Previously I would have said no way, but more recent recordings suggest that they could cultivate a lo-fi key of Z approach that might draw in the WFMU crowd.

Here's my promise, girls: repent publicly, dig up something to send mommy to prison (fake it if you must), and I'll be the first in line to download a pirated copy of your next CD.

[Hat tip: Abby]

9:06 AM :: Comments (6)

At last, a kidporn raid I can get behind. Kevin Alfred Strom, founder of the National Vanguard white supremacist group, was arrested for possession of child pornography. The racist bulletin boards are overheating with talk about a Zionist conspiracy (or perhaps merely an ugly divorce from his white trash hot wife) and one of KAS's leading defenders is his friend (and ours) April Gaede, the brains behind (and spawner of) white power porn kiddies Prussian Blue (dba Dresden Angels). Anyone want to take bets on who's posing in those illicit jpegs?

Lest you think I spend my time monitoring racist discussion groups, I discovered this thread because one user linked to a post on radosh.net as evidence of "an Israeli connection" to the child pornography industry. One hint: It starts with Huck and ends with apoo.

3:13 PM :: Comments (7)

The GQ profile of Prussian Blue — the one that was originally written for the never-published fourth issue of Radar — is finally online. Sadly, it's a little flat, especially if you're already familiar with the antics of these lovable scamps. Best tidbit: they call each other "Lynxie" and "Lambie" — because their names weren't dorky enough already. (Ironically, they probably wouldn't be allowed to have those names in their beloved Germany.)

Meanwhile, here's proof that Lynx (or is that Lamb?) is the next Britney Spears.

1:21 PM :: Comments (5)

A collection of links in honor of Claude Allen:

Evil twins in fantasy...

in reality...

in philosophy...

and in operating systems.

An ancient evil twin tribute page.

And how to make your own evil twin.

But wait, which is the evil one?

10:50 AM :: Comments (5)

Oh, those irony-lovin' hipsters. They've gone and written a Prussian Blue musical.

Snap judgment: only if it's a hell of a lot smarter and funnier than the press release.

Hat tip to Matt.

By the way, I once pitched a PB sitcom to a friend at a production company. His response: not even on HBO. Obviously off-Broadway was the way to go.

[Prussian who? Previous posts.]

6:07 PM :: Comments (2)

Two events worth noting at the Fairfield, Connecticut Borders Books next week. On December 10th, come meet Sandra Lee, author of Semi-Homemade Cooking. In the words of one Amazon reviewer, "Lee basically takes overprocessed, ridiculously expensive premade foods and arranges them into new combinations, adding the odd badly made homemade garnish or ingredient to her typical hopeless mishmash of precooked overprocessed chemical-laden garbage. She presents this as some kind of new method of cooking, when in fact it's just a combination of mental laziness and indifference to real flavour and nutrition."

Which brings us to the December 14th event.

By the way, my sources tell me that the youngest member of Huckapoo, P.J. Bardot, has just turned 15. Here's the most recent picture of her available, by special request from John Derbyshire.

5:22 PM :: Comments (8)

Today's Blue's News: "Teen People nixed a story about Hitler-loving teenybopper twins Prussian Blue — amid outrage that the glossy had promised to avoid the words 'hate,' 'supremacist' and 'Nazi' in its piece on the racist singing sisters."

To be fair, they made the same promise to Hilary Duff.

[Previously on this topic]

8:51 AM :: Comments (4)

Now look what you big meanies have done. Poor Lynx and Lamb "were in tears," after the reaction to their Primetime debut, their lawyer tells Newsweek. "This is going to follow them for the rest of their lives," he says, adding that they "are living in an undisclosed location and there will be no personal appearances until this thing is long blown over."

Who knows when that will be. The floodgates are now open, and while readers of this site have long known the joys of Crushin' Blue, the rest of the world is eagerly playing catch-up (though I do wish I'd been the one to think of Cute Klux Klan).

Little there will be news to you, though local columnist Bill McEwen has some fun background color on the twins' parents. Apparently dad once pissed off a crowd that had gathered to see an image of the Virgin Mary that had appeared on a tree by chainsawing the fucker down and shouting, "You Catholics! There's your virgin!" Which is pretty funny, really. And mom "burst into local lore in 1994 riding a horse -- white, of course -- near Blackstone and Shaw avenues while wearing bumper stickers across her breasts, a G-string, a cowboy hat with bunny ears, a white bunny tail and cowboy boots." Which, if you've seen mom: eew.

But anyway I finally watched the Primetime segment and I have to say, it is an amazing comment on the state of TV news that I came away from it more disgusted by Primetime than by the neo-Nazis. I almost never watch this kind of show, but I was absolutely stunned and horrified by the hacky narration and ham-handed production.

Continue reading "There's your virgins!" »

2:50 PM :: Comments (8)

Welcome back to radosh.net. You know, this Internet blog doesn't just happen. It takes time, effort, and even a little money to keep radosh.net on the air at the standards you've come to expect. Contrary to popular belief, we receive no money from the government and basically none from anyone else either. I have never put out a tip jar, and while these Google ads have been up for a year, they have yet to earn the minimum $100 necessary before Google will cut a check. In fact, I'm going to be getting rid of them any day now.

So for the first time in three years, I'm going to ask you, my loyal readers, for something in exchange for all the pleasure you've sucked out of this site. But don't flee yet. I'm not asking for money. And if you give, you'll have the chance to get something yourself too.

Before I get to that, though, I'd like you to think about the special place radosh.net holds in your life. Think about where you first learned that Huckapoo was the next big thing, and that Prussian Blue was the next Huckapoo. Where did you first find out that Peter Landesman was full of shit? Where did you first see Arnold Schwarzenegger's cock?

And that's only the beginning. I'm dedicated to making radosh.net one of the twenty or thirty most exciting blogs on the Blogebrity B-list. That's why I'm constantly innovating, with hypothetically popular new features like the New Yorker Cartoon Anti-Caption Contest.

So what do I want? The same thing you do, my geeky friend: a free Xbox 360.

That's right. This is all building up to one of those pyramid schemes you keep hearing about, where if I get eight people to sign up for a sales offer, I get a free toy -- and if those eight people lure in eight more people, they get one too. Of course, unlike most pyramid schemes, this one has been thoroughly vetted and is on the up and up.

Over the next week, I'll be telling you more about why you want a free Xbox 360 and how by helping me, you're also helping yourself. But for now, I want you to stop thinking of yourself for a second and think about me for a change. Even if you have no interest in videogames, which I find hard to believe, just sign up here and complete one order so that I can get the referral credit. The orders are pretty non-onerous. They just ask you to sign up for a new credit card that you then have to use at least once, or buy something that will cost you between $10 and $30. If you read the fine print, you'll see that there are ways to keep costs even lower.

Yes, it's cheesy. Yes, it's a bit of a pain in the ass. No, I have no pride. But if you enjoy radosh.net at all, isn't it the least you can do? I mean, other than the actual least you can do, which is nothing. But you wouldn't do that, would you? Please, join today!

11:56 AM :: Comments (12)

Hold onto yer drindls! GTA blogger Marc Weisblott (sorry, that's Greater Toronto Area, not Grand Theft Auto) just me dropped a note about an epic battle being waged between the pure-hearted defenders of all things young, slutty, and racist and the nefarious crypto-Jewish nerds at Wikipedia.

Apparently, the Prussian Blue fan base discovered the new entry about their girltoys and, detecting Jewish sympathies, launched a campaign to annex the page like so many Sudetenlands. The barrage of edits has sparked a lenghty and entertaining debate on the Huckanazi's Wiki talk page, complete with gratuitious Star Wars reference.

Shorter version:

"The ABC Interview with Lynx & Lamb Gaede went on for quite some time, much longer than the total footage with the girls that was included in the Primetime show. The rest remains on file in ABC's archive folder on the Gaede family, available to be exploited at any time the Jews who run ABC see some advantage in doing so."

"Can someone tell me what exactly ARE the great historical accomplishments of 'your' race that make you proud to be white? Capitalism? Slavery? Genocide? Sitcoms? Guns? War? Pollution? Addiction? NAFTA? Thigh-Master? This your fucking white history, my 'friend.'"

"You've gotta admit, the one on the right (Lynx i think?)in the hitler t-shirt pic is hot. I want to mack with her. But other than that, they're racist brainwashed fucks. And i'm not a pedophile or anything, i'm 15."

"Uh, but they're 13. So stop eye-raping 13-year-olds, hmmkay?"

"Not even. They are like, thirteen and a half."

Yeah, and in a threesome they'd be practically 27!

[Previously on this topic]

10:16 AM :: Comments (4)

Since last night's Prussian Blue broadcast (which I've recorded but not yet watched) I've noticed a small spike in traffic from people Googling Prussian Blue and finding this old post. Curious about where this site ranks, I did the same search and stumbled onto the best Prussian Blue fan site ever:

OK, it's not actually a PB fan site, but it sure should be. However, this is just pervy. And from Japan, no really, it's Plussian Blue. Wait, shouldn't that be "brue"?

But most important -- since our favorite anti-PB bloggers seem to be taking some time off -- I found out that there's now an OFFICIAL Prussian Blue blog that's even funnier than the anti-fan site. I mean, if the PB-haters had posted this picture, instead of their mom, I would have assumed it was photoshopped!

If only you could see some headlights! If you do want something hotter try this pouty pose from li'l Lynx (or is it Lamb?). I totally wish I'd come up with that headline.

By the way, that's grabbed from the new official PB forum, and there's much more, as well as lot's of big fun racism, if that's the kind of thing you get your kicks from (and I know it is). My favorite response the the Primetime broadcast was, "It was heavy on showing Nazi and Hitler references because lots of people have a knee-jerk reaction to that. Also they tried to discredit the girls by showing lots of dead bodies immediately after L&L mentioned they believed the Holocaust was an exaggeration." Yeah, people have such a knee-jerk reation to lots of dead bodies. Fortunately, that futile attempt to discredit Licks and Limb won't work. Everyone knows all those people killed themselves to make Hitler look bad.

Update: Now that picture has been photoshopped.

9:41 AM :: Comments (10)

An alert reader informs me that Prussian Blue will be featured on ABC's Primetime tonight at 10. You think they'd save that for sweeps, considering that the girls are becoming total hotties, in an underage, racist sort of way.

I'm a little bit fatherland...

And I'm a little bit rock n roll.

2:40 PM :: Comments (3)

It's a good thing my daughter Margalit isn't British royalty.

I think she's trying out for a slot in Prussian Blue. I've tried to tell her that they probably won't accept a Jewess, no matter how, um, Reform.

Continue reading "Harry's got nothing on my li'l princess" »

5:21 PM :: Comments (7)

Fans of talentless yet perversely alluring, not even close to legal pop tarts, hang on to your ever-lovin' hats. Perhaps you'll recall my recent discovery of a yahoo named Badonicus (which is also, coincidentally, the Harry Potter spell for putting something bad on top of something else), who was convinced that Huckapoo is actually a Jewish plot to turn good Christian girls into "racemixing dykes and sluts" (which he apparently thinks is a bad thing).

Since I know you didn't get to the end of that post, you missed the comments section in which the po' wittle wacists actually complain about being the subject of ad hominem attacks from (presumably) Radosh.net readers (thanks, I guess, but really, why bother?). The first comment, though, is from a genuine Bigdickus fan, who writes, "You realize of course what the next step is for the Christian culture reclamation? To make a Christian Huckapoo facsimilie!"

I know what you're thinking: Don't we already have Jump5? But you have to remember that when these dudes say "Christian" they don't mean the wimpy kind of Christians who just worship Christ and try to convince everybody else to worship Christ also — they mean Christian as in, pure-blood, White Power-preaching Aryans. Oh sure, some people might find Vanilla Ninja all the Aryan they can stomach, but everyone else, meet your new sick crush: Prussian Blue.

Reasons Prussian Blue may just be even better than Huckapoo:

1. Younger! These 12-year-old vixens make Groovy Tuesday look like Cher.
2. Identical twins! In six years, hello incest-themed beer commercial!
3. Even more convincing porn star names, actually given to them by their mother! Say sieg heil to Lynx and Lamb!
4. Most importantly, of course, these adorable little moppets are HARDCORE RACISTS!

Continue reading "With Huckapoo, my ghostly father? no; I have forgot that name, and that name's woe." »

12:22 PM :: Comments (46)