Whoopi is Strange, Chase Strangio is Stranger, and Hank Johnson defiles Jimi Hendrix (posted 6/23/25)

Note: I drafted this column on Saturday afternoon, before we bombed the Iranian nuke sites, and I’ve got nothing to add to that great story. 

Except to say that it is really refreshing to see a military that is giving zero attention to understanding white rage, or figuring out how we can make helmets that fit over a male drag-queen pilot’s beehive wig, or establishing call-signs that aren’t ethnically offensive, and is focusing instead on putting warheads on targets.

I was going to say “putting warheads on foreheads,” but the Israelis seem to have already turned the correct foreheads into a thick goulash, served with a side of (General) salami on finger sandwiches.  Made of actual fingers!

So thank you for your service, American military bad asses!

Also, on Friday I teased my take on Greta Thunberg’s comedy of errors on the high seas, but this column went so long that I had to bump Greta back to Wednesday.  (But I still snuck a little Greta into this column, and I know you’ll recognize it when you hear it.)

I now return you to your regularly scheduled column…

To start today, how about some praise for our beloved CO, who has been making some AI graphics for my recent columns?  My favorite part of the cartoon version of me is the CORCA fedora, and if CO is reading this (and doesn’t He see all and know all?), the one he made with me drinking the “medicinal bourbon” is my favorite.  I’ve got a little firmer jawline in that one, and there’s a little Archer vibe to it. 

In fact, if I can request my own edits – and word on the street is that I’m a bit of a show pony (in an adorable, not off-putting sort of way) – how about a cross between Archer and me… and go a little heavy on the Archer? 

On The View last week, racist goblin Whoopi Goldberg said that it’s worse to be black in America today than to be a woman in Iran.  Obviously – just like Sunny Hostin and Ana Navarro – Whoopi Goldberg is an idiot.  But you could already tell that just from that Predator haircut of hers.  (For a moment, when I heard that Arnold was going on The View last week, I wished for a re-match of the Arnold-Predator battle at the end of the movie.) 

Her hatred of America (reliably echoed by Hostin and Navarro) typifies the worst of the left’s hostility that has driven away so many working class and minority citizens who used to be reliably blue voters.  Bill Maher summed it up best when he said that liberals “have to do something about The View.”

Because I’m an optimist and like to try to find something good to say about people when I can, I’ll say this for Whoopi: she was much better in Ghost than she was in Predator.

You may remember Chase Strangio because of her on-the-nose “nom de delusion,” or from her appearance in my nominees for Moron on the Month back in April.  She’s the wacky gal who underwent what had to have been a brutal regimen of hormone injections to transform herself from a confused little twig of a girl into a heavily tattooed, sad, older twig of a girl, with a boy’s haircut and the rugged masculinity and patchy beard of effete Lil’ Davy Hogg.  (I miss that demi-guy!)

Then she went to law school.  And because the legal bar ironically doesn’t have a mental stability bar that those who want to practice law must clear, she became a lawyer. 

And last December, she became the first gender-dysmorphia sufferer to appear before the Supreme Court, where she argued against states’ rights to ban surgical mutilation and injecting chemicals that do life-long damage into children in pursuit of the fantasy that humans can change genders. 

Or, in the left’s words, “gender-affirming health care.” 

The professional left: PhDs in Euphemisms, held back for five years in grade-school Reality 101 class.    

“How did that argument in front of SCOTUS go, Martin?” you are not asking.  Because: Duh! 

By the way, a couple of years ago I started reading some complete SCOTUS rulings, and I’ve been disappointed by the total absence of the word “duh” in any rulings, even those written by the clearest writers and thinkers on the court – Alito and Thomas, IMHO. 

I’d argue that some rulings should have consisted of nothing BUT that word.  When a case went up to settle the question of whether Americans have the right to own guns, or whether lefties really can’t racially or sexually discriminate against their fellow citizens, even if those citizens are creepy straight people or evil whites, I would have liked the shortest rulings ever.

Just the date, the case name (“Whiney Wusses vs. the 2nd Amendment” or “Racists who hate Whitey vs. Whitey”) and then: “Duh!”

Possibly with a few short concurrences (Thomas: “Get outta here with that nonsense.”  Alito: “Ya think?!”  Kavanaugh: “C’mon man!”).  And of course some cogent dissents from Kagan, Sotomayor and Ketanji Jeanne-Pierre: “Waahh!  Why can’t our political preferences trump the dusty old constitution?  How dare you?  You have stolen our dreams with your empty words!  Waaaahhh!”

Where was I?

Oh yeah: Miss Strange-io

Here are some excerpts from a Slate article in which she summed up her argument, which I swear to you I am not making up: “There is no such thing as the ‘male body.’  A penis is not a male body part.  It’s just an unusual body part for a woman.”

I’ll say!  In fact, if even one woman has one, that’s not unusual enough!  One solitary woman with a penis would make that situation far too common, and would threaten to tear what we call “reality” asunder. 

Not to mention ruining your Saturday night when you’d thought you were making good progress… right up until the worst reveal since enough mail-in ballots postmarked “Sorosville” came in to declare Joe Biden the winner in 2020.

But move over, Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas and Cato the Elder, because C-Strange has the floor: “Of course the phrase [“born male”] is easier to understand, since it reinforces deeply entrenched views about what makes a man and what makes a woman.  But it is precisely these views that we must change.” 

Yes.  “Deeply entrenched.”  (And before anyone can object, I’ve said before that I’m not up on gay slang.  So if that phrase is offensive, mea culpa.) And good luck changing precisely THOSE views, Strange-y.               

Well, SCOTUS finally ruled on the case last week.  They found that Ms. “A-Penis-is-not-a-Male-Body-Part” is out of her non-binary gourd, and of course states can outlaw child mutilation performed to facilitate mental illness.

Unexpectedly!

Columnist T. Becket Adams put it best: “The obvious lesson here is: don’t send crazy people to argue your case before the Supreme Court.” 

I would add two corollaries:  Don’t argue a crazy position before the Supreme Court.

And if no conservative troll was there at the Court to play Chase into the room with the Doors’ “People are Strange,” (“People are strange, when you’re even stranger…”) we left money on the table. 

And on that musical transition, I’m going to end with one of the oddest bits of theatre from a theatre-kid congressman that you’ve ever seen. 

If you know who Hank Johnson is, it’s probably because he’s the special human who asked, totally seriously, in a congressional Armed Services committee hearing about a proposed increase to the size of a base on Guam, whether “the whole island will become so overly populated that it will tip over and capsize.”

YAY, democracy! 

So how does one follow up that assault on basic logic?  With an assault on some great music, in this case Jimi Hendrix’s “Hey Joe.”

Trigger warning: If you decide you want to watch it, and insist on doing so with the sound on, you can find the video online. But PLEASE follow these instructions first:

1. Wash two Extra-Strength Tylenol down with a heavy-pour shot of Knob Creek 9 bourbon (thank you God, for inventing Kentucky!) first.

2. Find Stevie Ray Vaughn’s live cover of “Voodoo Child” (from Austin City Limits) – the one with the reverb so thick you could brush your teeth with it, if you don’t mind some bleeding gums afterwards – and cue it up so that you can watch it immediately after you watch Hank Johnson’s abominable war crime of a cover.  Because you don’t want that thing bouncing around in your frontal lobes for too long afterward.

Johnson added his own lyrics to the song – and if his singing and off-tune guitar playing were like painting a mustache on the Mona Lisa (and they were), his lyrics were the equivalent of spray painting a big ol’ phallus on her.  Those lyrics are as awful as you’d guess, if you had the imagination of Stephen King on a toxic combination of mushrooms and meth. 

To wit: “Hey Trump, where you goin’ with that gun in your hand?  I’m going down the street to shoot down democracy.”

Ugh! 

Here’s my quick response – please listen with the melody in your head – in this rap battle between two talentless song writers:

“Hey Hank, where you goin’ with no brain in yo’ head?

Hey Hank, I said, where you goin’ with no brain in yo’ head?

I’m goin’ down to Congress,

‘Cause I’m worried that Guam’s ‘bout to capsize.

Yeah, we’re addin’ to our base there,

And I’m ‘fraid that Guam’ll capsize.

And that ain’t cool!

[begin surprise Kinison sampling filter]  Hey Hank, you’ve gotta be sh*tting me, right?

Hey Hank, I said you can’t actually think that Guam’s gonna capsize, right?

‘Cause you know what, Hank?

ISLANDS DON’T TIP OVER!!  

THEY’RE NOT BOATS, HANK!  THEY DON’T FLOAT!  THEY’RE ISLANDS! 

OH!  OHHHHHHH! THIS MORON CAN’T BE AN ELECTED OFFICIAL!

YOU HEAR THAT, HANK?  THAT’S JIMI HENDRIX SPINNING IN HIS GRAVE!!

OH!  OHHHHHHHHH!” [end Kinison sampling filter]

And, scene. 

My apologies to the Hendrix estate for even bringing this up.

By the way, regular readers know that I’m a Christian, but if I ever have moments of doubting God, it’s because of things like the fact that Stevie Ray Vaughn died in his mid-30s in a plane crash, and Sam Kinison died in his 30s because he was hit by a drunk driver. 

But Barbra Streisand is still alive in her late hundreds, and Madonna will be flogging her wrinkly old arse around on stage until she’s in her 90s. 

In the words of the great Oliver Anthony, “That math don’t seem right.”

Hamas delenda est!

The Bitter and the Sweet at Christmas (posted 12/18/23)

As you read this, my wife and youngest daughter and I will be flying to visit Katie (my oldest daughter) and her husband in Denver.  We’ll be returning home on Friday, and I hope to still be able to post a column that morning. 

I’m feeling a little of the usual, mild disorientation I feel before traveling, made much stronger now by the insane twists and turns our political world has been making.  For one example, a conservative blogger turned me on to a 10-minute rant that Chris Cuomo made last week about Israel and Hamas… and I found myself agreeing with every word he said! 

I know: Chris Cuomo!  The dullest of the Cuomos!  And yet he made perfect sense, pointing out how evil Hamas is, and how leftists who are joining in with the anti-Semitic mobs chanting for genocide are making a huge moral and political mistake.

Then I see a clip of Frankenstein Fetterman, and he’s continuing to make sense too!  Now he’s said that even though he is pro-immigration, we still need to stop the unvetted flood of immigrants who are crossing our border daily.  He’s also been taking more and more heat – and standing up to it – for continuing to back Israel against Hamas. 

The usual fanatical suspects got their burkas over their head about him telling the truth about Hamas and calling them “terrorists.” Over the last month protestors have blocked streets outside his Philly office and heckled him at events.  And he responded by saying that he’s not a progressive.

So yeah, I’m a little dizzy.  Chris Cuomo is making sense; Fetterman is acting more like a Republican Senator than most Republican senators; the world is upside down, cats and dogs are living together, nothing makes sense anymore!

I’ve done a lot of the usual mockery lately, and the dominant tone of my recent columns has been mostly negative: it seems like the world and our nation are deteriorating before my eyes, and we have one national party that is going farther and farther to the radical and – I don’t know what other word to use – evil left.

And the other party seems like it’s bound and determined to do everything in its power to break my heart, personally. 

But it’s Christmas time, so I want to change the focus in this column. 

This has always been my favorite time of year, starting when I was a kid.  I loved the snow, I loved the carols, I loved the Christmas plays at church.  Oddly enough, though I’ve always been a wise guy, I was never a Wise Man. 

Speaking of which, I just remembered a dumb joke about kids portraying the Three Wise Men at church.  The three kids approach the manger, and one of them holds up a small box and says, “I have gold.” And he puts it down.  The second kid says, “I have myrrh,” and puts it down.  And the third kid steps up and holds out his box and says, “Frank sent this.”

Anyway, in my own experience, being young and blessed to be growing up in a loving and stable family, in the mostly functional and cohesive Midwest, Christmas was unadulterated bliss. 

But as I’ve reached my sixth decade, it’s pretty easy to understand why this holiday can be a depressing time for many people.  Mixed in with the good things, we can easily succumb to bittersweet nostalgia for lost loved ones, lost youth, and happier times that appear even more glowing because of their distance from the gritty present. 

And when tragedy happens near Christmas – as it inevitably does over a long enough time span, considering that the Thanksgiving-to-Christmas season is about 1/8th of the year – the losses bite deeper when the season reminds us.

My dad died 9 years ago last Thursday, and Alzheimers has taken more of mom from herself and from us over the past year.  A loved one died in the prime of her life last Monday from an unexpected autoimmune disease and pneumonia, leaving three kids and a devastated extended family. 

Life continually reminds us that it isn’t fair, and that we’re not guaranteed anything on this earth.

Still, this site is about cautious optimism, and I don’t know if I’m getting wiser, or just older.  But my increasing sense of the brevity and fragility of life really is making me value and appreciate each day more and more.  (You may remember my column last month, in which I quoted the end of Shakespeare’s Sonnet 73: “This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong/To love that well which thou must leave ere long.”)(That guy knew some stuff.)

And if that’s the case for every regular old day, for me it’s even more true of Christmas and the Christmas season.  So I thought I’d conclude this column by recommending a few of my favorite Christmas books and music, and ask you to share some of yours.

I’ve written before of how much I love Dicken’s great “A Christmas Carol.”  Even though we all get sick of songs, movies and people who get over-exposed – and no cultural production has been experienced more often than A Christmas Carol! – the tale has never gotten old for me. 

I still enjoy watching it on tv, and my favorite version has fluctuated between the 1938 version with Reginald Owen and the 1951 with Alistair Sim, but in recent years the 1999 version with Patrick Stuart has elbowed its way into a near, three-way tie.   

I re-read at least most of the book every year, but in recent times I’ve taken to listening to it as a book on cd (or streaming), as read by the late, great Frank Muller.  You can easily find that recording, and if you’re traveling for the holidays, listening to the combination of Muller’s voice and Dickens’ masterful writing should put you in the spirit of the season. 

This year conservative Hillsdale College – a great contrast and counterpoint to the kind of woke malice on display in the Ivy League and in way too many other universities –  has put out a six-episode course on the Carol. 

The videos are well done; their total run time is around 3 hours, and you watch them for free by registering on the Hillsdale site.  An English prof named Dwight Lindley walks you through the text, mostly celebrating but also explaining and interpreting, and it’s worth your time.

When it comes to Christmas music, it goes without saying that when the great and powerful CO performed his own version of “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen” on guitar last Christmas at my request, I had reached the pinnacle of coolness.  (Perhaps he can re-post that before Christmas, for those who have found the CO site over the last year?)

I’ve always thought that you can’t go wrong with Christmas carols played by brass quartets.  I’ve also written in the past about the quirky but effective takes on many carols from Sufjan Stevens, which are worth checking out on line. 

The Christmas song that I listen to the most in recent years is “O Come, O come, Emmanuel,” probably because its combination of hope and mourning speaks to the bittersweetness that I discussed above.  

My favorite version lately is the OG country/bluegrass one by the Petersons, a family with three sisters with great voices. They do a 5-minute melding of “O Come, O Come” and “Come Thou Long Expected Jesus,” that is all kinds of right.  The instrumentation comes from a banjo, violin, mandolin, cello, guitar and dobro, and while I appreciate a symphony, my hillbilly heart loves those six instruments together. 

Finally – and this one might be a bridge too far for those of you who are not religiously inclined – I recently discovered Chosen, the video series on the life of Christ.  In general, I’m a little put-off by most video versions of the Bible or Bible stories, but this series is really well done, and captures what seems to me to be the essence of the Man and His story. 

If you’re inclined to give it a try, I’d suggest one particular scene to give you a taste of the series: the story of Christ meeting the woman at the well.  The scene is only around 7 minutes long, but it captures the essence for me.  And even if you’re not a believer, if that scene doesn’t choke you up at least a little, I don’t know what’s going on with you.  

Okay, CO nation.  I’m off for some family time in Denver.  If you’ve got particular Christmas traditions, music or anything else that makes the season for you, please share them. 

But as the holiday approaches, we must still not forget…

Hamas delenda est!