How Many Countries Appear Batshit?

[The Nickname Who Was Thursday]

Seriously, get over moby dick.

QFMFT

[garbon]

There's always been low class entertainment and high class entertainment in this country, cross comparing the two isn't quite fair.

And what is with MP's trite Ivory Tower sneer at low class entertainment?

[garbon]

Seriously, get over moby dick.

QFMFT

Should he impale himself with it?

[saskganesh]

GIT R DONE

The funniest thing is, Larry the Cable Guy is a damn yankee.

Nebraska isn't yankee.

They fought on the Union side. 

Hard for the state to do that, as it didn't exist till 1867.

I grant you it wasn't dixie, it was whatever the hell westerners were calling themselves at the time.

it was a slave-free territory. most settlers were yankees. they raised troops for the union, and no battles with the secessionists were fought in Nebraska.

and they called themselves: "squatters". 

http://www.nebraskahistory.org/publish/publicat/timeline/nicknames_nebraska_2.htm

[Queequeg]

There's always been low class entertainment and high class entertainment in this country, cross comparing the two isn't quite fair.

And what is with MP's trite Ivory Tower sneer at low class entertainment?

So in order to hate Larry the Cable Guy I have to sip cognac every evening while reading Harper's in my Skull and Bones smoking jacket?


What?

[Capetan Mihali]

This thread needs to be placed in the inane asylum.

[KRonn]

There's always been low class entertainment and high class entertainment in this country, cross comparing the two isn't quite fair.

And what is with MP's trite Ivory Tower sneer at low class entertainment?

So in order to hate Larry the Cable Guy I have to sip cognac every evening while reading Harper's in my Skull and Bones smoking jacket?


What?

Darn right, else you're a hypocrite!   

I've only seen the Cable Guy on a few appearances, news spots. Does he have a show, or has he been in movies? Just seems like another case of mass media marketing and the crass dumbing down of America.      Or maybe he's pretty good, don't know... don't much care either way.
Just get er dun! 

[Savonarola]

I guess so. In two centuries, we've seen them go from haiku and pagodas to Hello Kitty and Panda Girls.

France went from Camus and Sartre to Lewis and Martin in a decade.   

[Neil]

It turns out that the genetic damage caused by proximity to atomic detonations has some... unfortunate long term side effects.

I think American culture is the damaging factor.

[Caliga]

Seriously, get over moby dick.

QFMFT

Don't discourage him.  His OCD/ADHD combo personality amuses me.

[Ed Anger]

Larry the cable guy haters amuse me. If I could come up with an act like that and bring in 30 million a year, I'd be up there in a flash. Plus, I've got plenty of poop jokes.

Reminds me of David Cross whining about it. His agony was delicious. Boo hoo.

[vinraith]

There's always been low class entertainment and high class entertainment in this country, cross comparing the two isn't quite fair.

And what is with MP's trite Ivory Tower sneer at low class entertainment?

So in order to hate Larry the Cable Guy I have to sip cognac every evening while reading Harper's in my Skull and Bones smoking jacket?


What?

Sneer all you want, the guy's fucking horrible. My point was that the people that were reading Poe and Melville back in the day are not of equivalent social standing with the people that are Larry the Cable Guy fans. It's not like crass, retarded humor is a 20th (or 21st) century invention.

[Malthus]

Just curious, but can anyone give some examples of truly low-brow 19th century entertainment (besides things like cock-fights and freak-shows)? What's the 19th century equivalent of Larry the Cable Guy?

[Savonarola]

Just curious, but can anyone give some examples of truly low-brow 19th century entertainment (besides things like cock-fights and freak-shows)? What's the 19th century equivalent of Larry the Cable Guy?

Le Petomane:  http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/363/did-a-french-vaudeville-star-once-specialize-in-trained-flatulence

I think it is poetically appropriate that Joseph Pujol, better known as Le Petomane (which we may loosely translate as "the fartiste") should emanate from France, without doubt the most pretentious nation on the face of the earth. Le Petomane performed his unique act from 1887 to 1914, and became one of his country's best-known vaudevillians. At one point he was earning 20,000 francs a week, compared to 8,000 for his contemporary Sarah Bernhardt. The true artistic priorities of the French public are thus admirably revealed.

Joseph Pujol, born in Marseilles in 1857, owed his remarkable career to an extraordinary ability to control the muscles of his abdomen and anus. As a youth he discovered he could take in via the rectum as much as two liters of water, which he could then expel at will. Later he found he could do the same thing with air. At first he employed this talent solely for the entertainment of his friends, obviously a very refined and intelligent bunch, but after working quietly for some years as a baker, he was encouraged to give public performances. The first of these, in Marseilles in 1887, met with some initial skepticism, petomanie ("fartistry") being something of a novelty even for the French, but within a few days Le Petomane's winning manner and solidly professional performance had won audiences over. From then on it was one triumph after another.

Le Petomane arrived in Paris in 1892, and was promptly hired by the Moulin Rouge, the famous music hall. He became an immediate sensation. In a typical performance, he appeared on stage in red cape, black trousers, and white cravat, with a pair of white gloves held in the hands for a touch of elegance. Having explained that his emissions were odorless--Le Petomane took care to irrigate his colon daily--he would proceed with a program of fart impressions, as it were: the timid fart of the young girl, the hearty fart of the miller, the fart of the bride on her wedding night (almost inaudible), the fart of the bride a week later (a lusty raspberry), and a majestic 10-second fart which he likened to a couturier cutting six feet of calico cloth.

Later, having inserted a tube into his nether orifice (offstage, of course--Le Petomane had a high regard for the delicacies of his audience), he would smoke a cigarette right down to the b--well, pretty damn far. He could also blow out candles and stage footlights. By way of grand finale, he would attach an ocarina to the tube and play popular tunes such as O sole mio, with which he would invite the audience to sing along.

An immensely popular figure in his day (even the king of Belgium snuck into Paris one night to see him incognito), Le Petomane was the subject of numerous articles, poems, and caricatures in popular magazines. One cartoon depicted little cherubs holding his coattails aloft while elaborate melodies issued from his hindquarters. (Actually, Le Petomane could produce only four notes without the aid of an instrument--do, mi, sol, and the octave do.) He bought a house filled with servants for his family, and in 1895 opened his own theatre. He went on foreign tours, sued a false female imitator (she had a bellows concealed in her skirt), and in general enjoyed a profitable career until 1914. Two of his sons (he had ten children) were disabled in World War I, however, and afterward he did not have the heart to return to the stage. He resumed his former career as a baker, and died surrounded by friends and family in 1945 at the age of 88. Mel Brooks would be lucky to do as well.

[Valmy]

I think it is poetically appropriate that Joseph Pujol, better known as Le Petomane (which we may loosely translate as "the fartiste") should emanate from France, without doubt the most pretentious nation on the face of the earth.

I have a hard time imagining the common joe Frenchmen being that pretentious.  French trash culture is pretty trashy.  This sentence seems think every single French person is some sort of grande ecole graduate.