Where the Battle of Algiers rages on ...Rick's Cafe Americain

#1

An Open Letter to Musicians Who Are Democrats That Hear That McCain is Using Their Music:

Shut the fuck up, please. Every time you complain about your music being used in the service of a campaign you do not support, two things happen. a) Liberal blogs all over the country chortle and pretend that this is some kind of a setback for the Republicans and b) Actual voters across the country think “That’s funny, they liked me when I was buying their record and going to their concerts. I guess they are just another bunch of Hollywood faggots.”

Neither one of these things help the campaign. If McCain wants to use the song, let him.

I repeat: Shut the fuck up.

Sincerely,
Charles Star

#2

An Open Letter to Barack Obama:

Shut the fuck up about Sarah Palin’s experience, particularly foreign policy experience.

Your campaign has spent the better part of the last two years arguing that judgment is more important than experience. This is a good argument because it is true. Voters apparently do not care about foreign policy ‘experience’ and experience appears to have no bearing on whether a candidate will use that experience wisely.

George W. Bush, hick governor, had no foreign policy experience. He beat a two-term VP with over a decade in Congress. Bill Clinton, hick governor, had no foreign policy experience. He beat George H.W. Bush, a sitting president, two-term VP, Congressman and head of the CIA. Bush? He beat Dukakis, proving nothing. Reagan? None. Beat a sitting president who negotiated a peace treaty in the Middle East. Carter? None. He beat a sitting president and veteran of Congress.

Does experience look like it matters?

So, having staked your campaign on your judgment, you chose Biden as VP, sort of admitting that maybe experience counts a little. This was kind of bad, and not only because you were already getting Delaware’s 3 electoral votes. I don’t even hate the Biden pick because I think he should be able to overcome the terrible atmospherics of his selection by being a decent attack dog - but you have to admit that the atmospherics suck.

Then you had the balls to go after Palin’s experience when what you should have been going after was her judgment. When McCain selected Palin as VP he didn’t choose someone who had no foreign policy experience; he chose someone who had apparently never spent a day of her life thinking about anything beyond the border of Alaska. Alaska’s proximity to Canada is, according to the GOP talking heads, supposed to mean something about her foreign policy bona fides.  After 9/11 you needed a passport to get into Canada. She got a passport in 2007. As far as the world knows, Sarah Palin has never thought about the world at large. She has no record on foreign policy and so she is now a blank slate to be filled in however the McCain campaign deems politically expedient. Not only would you be able to attack Palin’s judgment - a mid-40’s governor with no public statements on foreign policy should not be considered a serious candidate for the Vice Presidency - you would be able to attack McCain’s judgment for making such a dimwitted choice.

This is how you should have gone after her selection. It would not only have been consistent with your own talking points, it would have kept the GOP from exploiting ‘experience’ - what most polls show is your biggest vulnerability.

And in doing so you opened up a line of attack on your own judgment.

Sincerely,
Charles Star

P.S. Hey Barack, the right answer to “admit that the surge is working” wasn’t It’s working, but who knew it would! when you are running against a candidate that staked his campaign on the surge. The right answer was Working? By what standard? If the U.S. pulled its troops out tomorrow we would be exactly where we were before the surge started. If Iraq can’t survive without the surge troops in place, we have established a permanent occupation. I’d call that a failure.

Sidney McLaren Star came into the world at 12:43 PM on Saturday, July 19. He’s healthy and happy - and Mom looks great!

I am really excited about our lineup this month:

Elna Baker, Babies Buying Babies: Observations from FAO Schwarz
Elna Baker is a writer, comedic storyteller and monologist. She’s performed her stories for This American Life, Studio 360, The Moth, Upright Citizens Brigade, and at many other comedy clubs throughout New York City. Her memoir, The New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance, will be published by Penguin in 2009.

Gaylord Fields, Yeah Yeah ... Uh, No: Exploring the Audiovisual Phenomenon of Beatles-Lookalike Long Playing Albums
Gaylord Fields, the senior editor at AOL Music, has previously worked at Rolling Stone and Spin. He also currently hosts a free-form radio program on WFMU in Jersey City every Sunday evening. He has met one Beatle — and three Rutles.

Julie Klausner, Cats, Musicals, Fan Fiction and Fan Fiction about Cats: The Musical: The Fan as Demented Creator
Julie Klausner is a lover of cats, musical theater, and at least three other things that are not fascinating to heterosexual men, including heterosexual men. She’s written for the New York Times, Salon and The Huffington Post, and she co-hosts the monthly show Obsessed at the UCB Theater. Her latest endeavor, a monthly live Soap Opera called Wasp Cove, stars David Rakoff and runs at Comix in monthly episodic installations.

Carrie McLaren, The Media Made Me Do It: The Human Being As Copycat
Carrie McLaren founded Stay Free!, curates Adult Education, and blogs sporadically at Hawthorne Street. Her book Shopping for Cancer: A Field Guild to Consumer Culture, will be published by Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux in 2009. Ms. McLaren’s last lecture for Adult Ed was “How NOT to Raise a Chimp in Your Home: the Legacy of W.N. Kellogg.”

And your host, Charles Star, talking about something or other
Charles Star is a lawyer sans portfolio and a stand-up comedian sans recognition. He lives in Brooklyn with his excellent wife, his awesome cat, and a fetus who is already tracking well above grade level.

Tuesday, May 6, 2008 - 8 pm (doors at 7:30)
Union Hall in Park Slope
702 Union St. @ 5th Ave
$5 cover

Adult Education is a monthly lecture series organized by the Brooklyn-based nonprofit, Stay Free! Each month is devoted to a given theme, and 4-5 speakers will address some aspect of that theme using visual aids.

| Pamela Paul, “Baby Gear Your Mother Didn’t Have”
| Daniel Radosh,"Marketing to Christian Kids or The Secret Identity of Bibleman”
| Charles Star, “A Short List of the Worst Children’s Toys Ever”
| Gary Drevitch, “How Princesses and Pokemon Conquered America”
| Susan Gregory Thomas, “Barbie Goes Vertical: How the Marketing Industry Brands Infants and Toddlers”

DANIEL RADOSH is author of the new book Rapture Ready! Adventures in the Parallel Universe of Christian Pop Culture. He is a frequent contributor to The New Yorker and a contributing editor at The Week magazine. His writing has appeared in dozens of publications, including The New York Times, Playboy, Esquire, and GQ. In the early 1990s, Radosh was a staff writer and editor at Spy magazine.

PAMELA PAUL is the author of Parenting, Inc: How We Are Sold on $800
Strollers, Fetal Education, Baby Sign Language, Sleeping Coaches, Toddler Couture, and Diaper Wipe Warmers—and What It Means for Our Children. She writes for Time magazine and the New York Times Book Review, and is the author of two previous books, Pornified and The Starter Marriage. She and her family live in Harlem.

GARY DREVITCH produces the parenting Web site freelancedad.com, contributes to magazines like Parents and Jewish Living, and writes non-fiction books for children. He is also the senior editor of
grandparents.com. A father of three, he has become part of the Pokemon problem, and now seeks its solution.

SUSAN GREGORY THOMAS is an investigative journalist and broadcaster. Formerly a senior editor at U.S. News & World Report and co-host of public television’s Digital Duo, she has also written for Time, the Washington Post, Glamour, and elsewhere. She has two children, seven and four years old.

CHARLES STAR is a sometimes lawyer, sometimes comic, and host of Adult Ed. But he is mostly known for his excellent cat.

Finally!

I’m hoping for a 12 seed, but expect a 13. This could be the first NCAA win by an Ivy League team in 10 years. (But I’m not holding my breath.)

On March 1 I am going to be in the Laughing Liberally show as the token in the Black Comedy Experiment. My show is one of a slate of great shows going on throughout the Leap Day weekend. The Laughing Liberally show includes me, Leighann Lord, Robert George, Elon James White and host Baratunde Thurston.

The Black Comedy Experiment
The Tank @ Collective:Unconscious
279 Church Street
$5 or $8 for a single show; $15 for a day pass; $25 for a weekend pass
Buy tickets here.

Tonight at Magnetic Field, I’ll be on the panel of a live version of Match Game in which I play the inimitable Charles Nelson Star.

Match Game 2008
March 20 at 8PM
Magnetic Field
97 Atlantic Avenue between Hicks and Henry
Free to watch (fun!) $5* to play (more fun!)

* All entry fees go into the prize pool.

I’m very happy to report that Adult Education has been recommended by both the New Yorker and TimeOut NY.

See you on the 22d?

I’m very excited to announce that Carrie and I are starting a new monthly lecture series called Adult Education at Union Hall in Park Slope. The presentations will be short, amusing and informative ... but you won’t learn anything that you really need to know.

The first show, “Micro-genre” is about genres that are so specific that you probably didn’t even realize that they were genres. I’ll let Carrie’s description take over from here:

Adult Education
Tuesday, January 22, 2008 at 8PM
Union Hall
702 Union St. @ 5th Ave (Park Slope)
FREE!

On YouTube, there are scores of toddler’s expressions after sucking on lemons. Entire groups of flickr photos are organized around photos of people wearing sweatshirts, photos of painted trains, photos of body hair. You could fill a small bookshelf with fake children’s memoirs. In this show, we discuss several examples of what we’re calling “micro-genres.”

Liz Clayton: The Architecture of Converted Fast-Food Restaurants

Paul Lukas: On Elevator World, American Jails, Nut Grower Monthly, and other obscure trade magazines

Heidi Cody: First National Icons: Native Americans in Grocery Brands

Jim Hanas: On meta-tourism: photos of tourists taking photos

Russell Scholl: On TV Commercials for Personal Hygiene Products

With HOST Charles Star

BIOS

LIZ CLAYTON is an obsessive-compulsive who tries to contain the world in words and pictures. Her work has been published in the Globe and Mail, Time Out New York, and on three million websites. She recently moved to Brooklyn from Toronto, where she ran the Pontiac Quarterly reading series.

HEIDI CODY is a Brooklyn-based artist and founder of CHOW

JIM HANAS is a freelance editor and writer who lives and works in Brooklyn.

PAUL LUKAS is a freelance writer and former zinester (Beer Frame) in Brooklyn. His Uni Watch column currently runs on ESPN.com

RUSSELL SCHOLL is a New York-based media archivist. He assembles moving image programs on a wide variety of subjects (the history of animation; early jazz shorts; burlesque; educational and propaganda films, etc.) and exhibits them at Barbes in Park Slope and other NYC venues.

CHARLES STAR (HOST) is a Brooklyn-based comedian who has written for the Onion News Network and Stay Free! magazine. Charles hosts the comedy show Pant-Hoot on the third Tuesday of every month at Magnetic Field.

On January 5, Claudia Cogan, Jiwon Lee and John F. O’Donnell hosted 50 First Jokes at The Creek and The Cave in Long Island City. Ultimately, over 60 comics told their first jokes (a previously unperformed joke or one written in 2008). This was mine.

If you want to make yourself look like a nut, claim to see something that nobody else sees. Notwithstanding that little bit of information, buried in a story about how Goldman Sachs avoided getting burned in the mortgage crisis was this paragraph:

Meanwhile, two Goldman managing directors acted as liaisons, helping bring Alex Rodriguez back to the New York Yankees baseball team, a classic Goldman deal that enhances the value of the firm’s 40 percent stake in the YES network - which it is trying to sell - while also pleasing Yankee fans. The symmetry was perfect: like the Yankees, Goldman, more than any other bank on Wall Street, is both hated and revered.

So now you tell me: did A-Rod approach people at Goldman Sachs on the advice of Warren Buffet? Or is it more likely that Goldman Sachs approached him, with an assist from Warren Buffet? Or asked A-Rod to give Warren Buffet a call.

I have a feeling that ARod may be making $30MM a year after all, with a little help from friends that aren’t the Yankees. Scott Boras is no dummy. He knows how important the sale of YES is to more than just the Yankees. 

This is not a pretty picture on many levels. (Note to self: Ablutions before taking the picture. Maybe a pedicure. Nobody needs to see those toes.) Still, it must be the picture of record, as it was taken on the morning of November 14, 2007 in order to confirm a bet with F-Train. As many* of you know, F-Train recently won a lot of bets when he gained over 17 pounds in under two and a half months. I tried to get him to take a double-or-nothing bet that he couldn’t do it again. Because he has been eating, he had enough energy to think through the bet and he declined. I assume he suspected that it was worth $20 to me to give him a heart attack.

In any event, in an effort to get back my money (or at least to delay payment) we have come up with a separate double-or-nothing: I have to get down to 195 by March 1, 2008. I have to lose 18.5 pounds in three and a half months. As in F-Train’s scenario, I will be dressed the same in every pic and the same scale will be in the same place when I take the picture. I’ll post an updated picture every two weeks or on any day when I feel like it. By the end it is my hope that I will not have to hold the camera as low to keep my gut out of the frame.

And now I’m opening the betting to you. Betting closes on Sunday and all monetary bets are the same for everyone: $20. If you want to get creative, I’m listening (and, FYI, married and a member in good standing of the New York State Bar). Betting closes on Monday, November 19, 2007 or, should I actually get 15 people to read this and care, $300. Leave the bets (or suggestions) in the comments.

Short FAQ after the jump.

Who the fuck does this guy think he is, posting a cat picture (and, probably the only cat picture this blog will ever see) on a Monday?

I wrote this last Tuesday but forgot to post it. I have to get better about that.

November 6:

I had a salad for lunch today. This would be unremarkable but for the fact that Carrie and I just returned from our Paris and Madrid where we redid our honeymoon and dramatically improved the experience.

To recap the comparison:

LOW POINTS
Honeymoon 1: I feel asleep at the wheel and drove into a very large tree and we got to see a Tompkins County ER.
Honeymoon 2: Our passports ended up in the laundry and we got to see the U.S. Embassy!

HIGH POINTS
Honeymoon 1: I won $15 in a four person poker tournament with friends from college.
Honeymoon 2: As we looked down at the lights of Paris from Montmartre ... do I really need to finish this sentence?

Anyway, back to the salad. This was my first normal salad in over two weeks because, strangely, they don’t have vegetables in Europe. After our trip to Barcelona two years ago, we didn’t expect to find any in Spain. (It is my current understanding that it is illegal to either grow or import vegetables in that country. Which explains the pat down at the airport.) However, France shocked me. France is the epicenter of cuisine; I figured that green vegetables was part of the repertoire. I figured wrong. Potatoes? Lots. Squash? Sure. But NOBODY simply sautees some spinach or asparagus or broccoli. Even as a side dish.

There was nothing in all of Paris that could reasonably be called a salad by anyone not consulting for McDonald’s. Vegetables are apparently only to be used as garnish. And the only salads we ever saw were meat dishes ... on a bed of lettuce.

On our last night in Paris I thought we had finally stumbled upon something that looked like a salad we would understand: “frisee aux lardons”. I assumed I’d get a plate of frisee (I am the only person who would look forward to such a thing, I assume) with a bit of bacon for flavor. What I received was a plate of lettuce with a pound of diced, thick-cut bacon on top.

I will always regret that it was the one day I forgot to bring the camera.