Now, this article really should be a review in the video or culture section of Blogcritics Magazine — but what makes Uncle Jay so interesting is the way he covers politics. He's a lot more informative than the screed writers of the newspapers that are dying away, or the screed writers of the now flowering "blogosphere" (including some of our very own friends right here at Blogcritics Magazine), though in all truth, you do need a working knowledge of current events in the United States to understand what Uncle Jay is talking about. We old (and not so old) geezers are the boys and girls he is really addressing with that sweet, friendly, sarcastic stab-em-in-the-back delivery style of his. If some kids happen to learn something along the way, well that's really great. But if they're too busy Facebooking and Twittering, and otherwise occupying their parents' computers with bullshit the wonders of 21st century technology, how can they possibly have time to listen to someone like Uncle Jay? I mean, he's an old-timer who still remembers the Beatles, for heavens' sake!
The Beatles! He's ancient!
But this young geezer does remember the Beatles and could care less about what passes for popular culture these days. Well, maybe those upskirt photos of Britney Spears or Paris Hilton do merit a glance or two. But otherwise...
Otherwise, it's rapidly getting to the point where Uncle Ruvy is willing to abandon the news of the "real" world - which is filled with lies and illusions anyway — and just sit back and enjoy while ...
Uncle Jay Explains the News. It's almost as much fun as singing "Happy Days Are Here Again!"
Don't forget, boys and girls, you can always go to "Uncle J-Mart" and buy yourself a CD or a mug with that credit card mom or dad gave you. Remember not to use your hard earned money irresponsibly - that's the government's job!
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Cindy
Ruvy,
I thought this was hilarious fun. Uncle Jay is pretty funny too. The one about the blogosphere was my favorite.
Here's a post from my latest favorite blogger. Lot's of bad language--one of my favorite upsets of the status quo, though I liked him even better when I thought he was a woman...
(on Jindal's complaint about the stimulus money for monitoring volcanic activity)
Comrade PhysioProf
Bobby Jindal Is Absofuckinglutely Correct
February 25, 2009
I think it is very important for each of us to take personal responsibility for geothermal tectonic activity. Eleventeen fucktillion gigajoules of magmatic energy is no match for the home-spun down-to-earth common-sense ingenuity of real hard-working Americans.
2 - roger nowosielski
Ruvy,
The satire aside, the saddest thing of all, perhaps, there's no longer fun in America - no happy days, no happy times, no happy thoughts. Just the tenor of all the comments and articles published here is proof enough how serious it had all become. They've robbed us of our innocence.
3 - Dave Nalle
Cindy, I think we each have a responsibility to host volcanoes in our own neighborhoods for the good of society. I'm waiting for the Obama administration to figure out how to allocate geothermal activity in an equitable way.
Dave
4 - Cindy
Here's something for you Roger.
5 - Joanne Huspek
Roger is right, and it's sad. I've been thinking of ways of stemming the negativity, but am coming up with zip, zilch, nada.
Anyway, Ruvy, I also thought this post was funny.
6 - Clavos
Roger is right, and it's sad.
Heh.
7 - Cindy
Oh Roger,
Don't give up on the video before the kids get out of that garage. The middle and end are the best parts.
(kids having fun always cheers me up anyway)
8 - roger nowosielski
Of course kids do, Cindy. But I was in my twenties, and every day in America was like a brand-new experience - there was hope in the air, and optimism, and lots of fun. And it lasted for thirty years.
Now there's nothing but doom and gloom, and all the fun is gone. And it's not just the aging; there's nothing to look forward to anymore, no future.
9 - Cindy
Here Roger. Something to consider.
10 - Dan(Miller)
Is there truth to the rumors that President Obama will soon appoint a Fun Czar? Or that one of the czars already appointed will take that on as an additional duty?
Dan(Miller)
11 - roger nowosielski
I got you, but my comments aren't so much about my personal life. They concern rather joie de vivre that America once afforded one. That's what's gone. Everyone's been affected as if by some incurable disease. The feeling is, we're on a sinking ship.
12 - Ruvy
Roger,
When you live in the most prosperous nation, the richest nation in the history of mankind, in the biggest city (New York was once the biggest city in the world) on the planet, of course there is a certain joie de vivre bubbling over. How could you avoid it? I lived in Brooklyn and I could feel it every single time I took the subway to Manhattan, or went to Brighton Beach.
Now?
Listen to the rap music, man! When it isn't filled with how some bitch is a whore, or how some cop should get killed, it's filled with philosophy. When I was a kid, it was all hormones and love. Who needed philosophy? Who gave a shit? Go watch the movie "Sandlot" if you want to feel what it was like when I was 12 years old.
Since Vietnam, it hasn't been the same. A bunch or wogs in black pajamas showed the most powerful army in the world the difference between believing in what you do and trying to play all the angles. And the stupid fuckers in D.C. still haven't figured out the basic lesson. When you go to war, you fight to win - otherwise, just stay the fuck home.
When we were kids Roger, the whole world owed America - and now they (I thank G-d it is "they", and not "we") owe the whole world. That ain't fun. It sucks! You didn't exactly get kicked back to post-war Poland with the financial meltdown that is going on - you can still eat real cottage cheese instead of qvark, and you can drink real coffee instead of chicory, but it seems like you and all the other Americans are on the express train to the the Gdánsk station - the one on the poor end of town.
This is where that Jewish heritage of yours can save your ass. Go check out the Jewish calendar. It's Adar! Get happy! Purim, the holiday where the bravery of a woman who fucked a gentile king saved our people, is right around the corner! And that miracle of salvation was repeated again in our own lifetime when someone (or was it Someone) killed off Joseph Stalin right before he was going to initiate the murder of the 3 million Jews in the Soviet Union! Right on Purim!
Break out a bottle of wine and pour yourself a glass. Wine gladdens a man's heart. And if you really need to laugh, go over Uncle Jay's podcasts.
Laugh a little bit, Roger! At least no Arab is tried to kill you with a tractor today. Be thankful for small favors!
There is more to life than Schopenhauer or Kirkegaard, or Marx or Gramsci. Don't forget that.
13 - roger nowosielski
Great thoughts, Ruvy. Believe me, I'm not an intellectual and have tasted all pleasures, from the most carnal to the most sublime. Perhaps I should get my lazy ass out of here and make it back to NY (or at least California) and mix with hoi poloi. It's all about life anyway - fuck politics, and economy and all the other bullshit. I'm not against hedonism.
14 - Cannonshop
Heh, that's the problem-they can't drink.
15 - roger nowosielski
Who are "they"?
16 - Jet
"They" are "them", just in the present tense.
17 - Hope and Change?
Ruvy...I agree....BUT...all the cultural crap is the fault of the 90% of Americans who dont like whats happening but keep quiet so they wont effend someone, be called a racists or a homophobe...
The country has been morally hijacked by a twisted few who find happeness in the dumbing down and moral decay of the US...
Not to fear...the coronation of King Barry, the most over rated and unqualified leader in world history..has awakened a sleeping giant!
For the first time I am seeing non-politcal people getting pissed off and saying "How the fuck did we get here? And how can this Moron be running our country into the ground?"
Like an substance abuser...you need to bottom out before you accept personal responsibility and make your way back! So here we are king barry is our rock bottom... and we know it...its time to stop the nonsense and take this country back!
18 - Ruvy
H&C,
The moral decay of the States has been going on for about 90 years. The folks who have sought to dumb down American culture have been at it for that long, at least.
"Mass culture", which has done the dumbing down, began seriously when the radio (Uncle Jay is Jay Gilbert, a radio DJ in Cincinnati, by the way) became popular in 1923, but it got started when Henry Ford started to succeed with his Model "T" a couple of years earlier. Radio and the Model "T" are the two items that have shaped American culture more than anything else in the last 90 years. And the automobile and radio are what have shaped mass culture world-wide.
This magazine caters to a niche in mass culture in the United States. So, in my comments I cannot afford to be too condemnatory - I get to hang my writer's hat here because Eric Olsen is pushing reviews of the
trashmore popular items released as "mass culture" 90 years after it began to dominate life in the United States.And Obama is not the nadir you make him out to be - your nation still has a few more notches to drop. Obama is a big huge signpost along that road to disaster - and you've passed it. Now the hill will slope further downhill, and the car will careen faster that it had.
And now I must leave you for about 25½ hours or so. Shabbat has arrived, and I leave this computer to consider the Work and Word of the Creator.... Think of it as a commercial break for our Sponsor.
shabbát shalóm, u'mevorákh
May you have a peaceful and blessed Sabbath,
Ruvy
19 - Baronius
Roger, I'm still having fun.
Ruvy, you've missed the inside story about modern American culture: Americans don't pay any attention to it anymore. We don't watch network TV. We don't buy rap music (actually, no one buys music any more, and most people don't listen to rap). Just about the only aspect of modern culture that you can't avoid is the almost-child almost-porn. But as a rule, if you're following American culture, you're a foreigner.
20 - roger nowosielski
Well, we're still preoccupied with celebs and movies. Not much music, anymore. And the new thing: no more the dating scene, just hooking up.
Football is still big; and beer drinking plus barbecue.
21 - Ruvy
Shavua Tov,
Ruvy, you've missed the inside story about modern American culture: Americans don't pay any attention to it anymore.
Folks around me do follow the trash that passes for American culture. Lots of them are "foreigners" - to you, that is. Lots of them are ex-pats like me. Most of my ex-pat neighbors have the same opinion of American culture as I - addictive porno-trash of a drug crazed pack of fools.
I grew up in something healthier and better is all I know. I'm glad that my kids did not get the full blast of the trash that is American culture today. They don't view weekends as a time to get drunk, stoned or high, they are not involved in constantly trying to get laid, and we can talk with them.
Does that make them different from American kids? I'm not sure. The Americans I do meet these days (in person, not here) seem flighty and somehow disconnected from reality. Or terribly depressed.
22 - roger nowosielski
Comm'n, Ruvy. You're being a little unfair. Hollywood, American music and jazz, the easy-going which USED to characterize American kind of interaction - these used to be cultural traits the rest of the world was envious of and eager to imitate. Take a look at how the Japanese culture adopted those standards, or how the Vietnamese who had come to American have assimilated - the way they dress, talk. They're more American than Americans.
23 - zingzing
i'm not sure the extremely religious (ruvy) are ones to talk about american culture. they are a part of that culture that likes to separate themselves from the culture by sometimes violently condemning it. the rest of us like our vices, and understand them for what they are.
american culture is broad. maybe it isn't deep, but it's got loads going on and sucks up influences from all sorts of sources, spitting them back out new and highly desirable.
no culture is 100% perfect, ruvy, no matter what you may try to think of your own. even you have a nasty streak towards violence and senseless condemnation. you're also judgmental. but, you know, violence is addictive to the religion-crazed. now go look out your window and watch the bombs go off.
24 - roger nowosielski
But zing, Ruvy was born and raised in U.S. - same parts as you. Besides, I don't think he was ortodox or Hassidic, so he couldn't forget.
25 - Clavos
spitting them back out new and highly desirable.
Pretty good characterization of american "culture" -- up to that part.