Hiatus

Fun is fun, but my political addiction and this blog are not contributing to productive writing time. Please check out my actual website to see my non-Bacon related work. And don't worry, Bacon will return.

Two days of headlines, two months of headaches ...

Bacon and I are still laughing too hard to put together anything on Sarah Palin. We do think that the new Obama ad, which doesn't even mention her, is very smart. The pick is so awful that the media will take care of it. Check out this collection of today's editorials.

Bacon can't stop laughing ...

Seriously? Here's one supporter's defense of Sarah Palin ... if McCain dies, surely she would step aside and pick someone else to be president. More later. Hey, donate to Obama on the right, huh?

Bacon sez: Are you kidding me?

NEWSFLASH: McCain picks VP with ties to Big Oil, who is anti-choice (even in cases of rape and incest) and is being investigated right now for corruption.

Bacon and I get ready for the big speech.

Ready for the big night? I've got plenty of food set up for the show (apple butter and Moxie for Bacon, pizza and Italian blood-orange soda for me). Bacon's zipping around West Hollywood in his rocket shorts burning off some excess energy.

Don't forget what tomorrow is either!

Bacon sez: Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome is the pits!

Being a robot monkey, Bacon doesn't have many medical problems. Sure, occasionally we have to hose some excess apple butter out of his intestinal track, but he's pretty much ship-shape. But that doesn't stop Bacon from reading all the medical websites he can find. He enjoys learning about polyps, beriberi and all the other fun things that can happen to the body.

So yesterday, before we settled in to watch the convention, Bacon showed me some research he'd done on Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome. I could see what Bacon was getting at -- does John McCain suffer from this problem?

It's a fair question. Studies suggest that as many as nine out of ten POWs suffer from PTSS. McCain was beaten and tortured for years (far longer than the average of 28-months in the study that gives us the 90% result).

While only an open record of McCain's mental health history and military records can answer the question for sure, the best we can do now is take a look at the symptoms of the disease and how they relate to McCain. Symptoms include:

"chronic physical signs of hyperarousal, including sleep problems, trouble concentrating, irritability, anger, poor concentration, blackouts or difficulty remembering things, increased tendency and reaction to being startled, and hypervigilance to threat."

Considering that nine out of ten POWs suffer from PTSS, and given how many of its symptoms fit McCain, why isn't this a part of the discussion about his fitness to be president? I know someone who suffers from PTSS, and he'd be the first to tell you he shouldn't be president.

Bacon Teevee Presents: John McCain!

Bacon Teevee Presents: The Fabulous Life of John McCain

I had to put Bacon into a cone of silence today while I get some other writing done. Enjoy this short film in the meanwhile.

Bacon asks: How many houses does McCain own?

It depends on what the meaning of "owns" is.

Bacon loves poop jokes

The New York Times sez: Talk of McCain's No. 2 Concerns Conservatives.

Tee-hee. Via TPM.

Bacon Presents: Two-Face John McCain

Bacon, being a robot monkey, has the brainpower of the Bat-Computer mixed with a love of chaos that would make the Joker blanch. So it's no wonder than when it came time to find a single unifying storyline for the Obama camp to affix to John McCain, Bacon suggested a comic-book supervillian.

First, a quick word about why the "celebrity" label has been so effective for the McCain camp. It works because it is a simple, single-word phrase that allows the Republicans to attack Obama in several different ways while sticking to a core message. They can say Obama isn't experienced enough ... what celebrity is experienced enough to be president. They can say he's an elitist, that he's out of touch, that his supporters are mere fanboys. It's really pretty brilliant.

The Obama camp has totally failed to do the same to John McCain. They've hit him with a huge number of attacks, from his temper to his oil-based-energy policies to his latest house-gaffe. But they haven't been able to affix a single word or phrase to McCain that encapsulates all of these attacks. Bacon, the little monkey robot genius, has.

"Two-Face."

By calling McCain Two-Face you at once attack him at his strongest point of being a "straight-shooter" while allowing several avenues of attack. You can hit him for his lobbying ties, wealth, anger, dishonesty, all under the guise of him being "two-faced." A two-faced person is erratic. A two-faced person pretends to be folksy while living in seven or ten houses. A two-faced person pretends to want the best for America while planning for several more wars.

Hell, even a comb-over is two-faced.

I think Bacon is on to something here. And if someone with more photoshop skills than either of us could meld this photo with another McCain face, they'd have a wicked Two-Face campaign poster.

Nice work, Bacon. Put on your rocket-shorts, we're going to see The Dark Knight again.

Bacon knows what John McCain is going through

Bacon doesn't know how many jars of apple butter he owns. It's five, by the way.

The really beautiful part of this attack is that the Obama camp is wrong about the number of houses McCain owns. It's not seven; it's ten. But let's see the Republicans attack them for being inaccurate about that. Right, Bacon? Hey, Bacon, don't do that!

Four. Bacon now owns four jars of apple butter.

Oh, Bacon!

The Robot Monkey Mashup Theatre Presents: Maverick!

Bacon, being a modern living-in-the-now kind of robot monkey, is one of the leading creator of Internet Mashup Theater. Rather than explain it, I'll just show you his latest piece, called John McCain as Maverick!

"At least I don't plaster on the makeup like a trollop, you cunt."

Don't Join the Bacon the Robot Monkey Death Cult

I awoke this morning from a dream, in which many of the girls I went to high school with were critiquing just how fat I'd become, to the sounds of a robot monkey sobbing. As a robot monkey, Bacon may have the brainpower of Doc Brown but he's also got the emotional stability of Liza Minnelli. So its not much of a surprise that I caught him this morning contemplating suicide by eating an entire bag of Mountain Dew-flavored Doritos.

I asked him what the matter was. Bacon can't speak, being a robot monkey, but he did a little dance that conveyed the following: "I am extremely disheartened by the way the election has been going in the last month, and furthermore I am starting to be convinced that the idiotic Republican strategy of branding Obama as a 'celebrity' is effective precisely because it is so idiotic and that American would rather have a 'cunt'-spewing cranky comb-over-wearing sleazy-used-car-salesman of a man as president and maybe they deserve one too."

(Really, it was a very good dance). Anyway, I sat down with Bacon, gave him some apple-butter and mango tea, and we made a list of things that discouraged Democrats can do instead of committing mass suicide before the convention.

1). Donate
Almost all of my money goes into keeping Bacon in good running order, but I've still managed to throw Obama a few bucks. Have you? Here's a page where you can donate in Bacon's name, or you can set up your own page to harass your friends into giving.

2). Volunteer
Obama can afford to be a few points down if he keeps up his vaunted ground game. That takes money and it takes volunteers. So quit watching the Olympics and get out there.

3). Quit obsessing over polls
I like reading 538, but it's responsible for up to 51% of my daily panic attacks. Fluctuations in polls are no reason to get back on the Xanax.

4). Start a blog about how you and your robot monkey are getting involved in the fight
Okay, this one is already taken, but Bacon wanted me to put it down anyway.

See, Bacon, don't you feel better now? Doing something constructive is always better than sitting around letting your panic take hold. Now why don't you put on your rocket-shorts and take a spin around the neighborhood? No, outside, Bacon! Outside! No, not through the screen door!

Oh, Bacon!

The Eminem-Bugliosi Defense

After an unfortunate incident involving a gallon of barbecue sauce and some cherry bombs, I had to put Bacon in a "cone of silence" for a little while the other day. That means no rocket-shorts, no apple butter, nothing. I used the quiet time to watch some teevee and wound up watching the battle-rap finale of the Eminem movie 8 Mile. I was getting into it when Bacon came up to me, holding his copy of Reclaiming History (which his robot monkey brain had finished in ten minutes) and a photo of Obama. I got what Bacon was saying instantly.

What do Eminem and Reclaiming History author Vincent Bugliosi have in common? They both understand that sometimes the best offense is to attack yourself.



Prosecutors always go first in trials, and Charles Manson-prosecutor Bugliosi understands the advantage that gives him. If there's something that he knows the defense is going to jump on, he introduces it himself first, no matter how bad it is. His theory is that if he says it first, it will have no power when his opposition uses it later on. It's exactly the method used by Eminem in his final battle against Papa Doc.

Placing the conventions back-to-back could work out great for Obama if he can 1). define himself for the media while 2). completely deflating the Republican attacks that will be coming the week after. Also, note that Papa Doc is a very Republican figure himself: a wealthy man posing as a hardscrabble leader who uses his opponent's skin color against him.

Barack Obama is smarter than me, and while he may not be as smart as Bacon, I doubt as much of his brainpower is devoted to monkeyshines. So I'm sure he's aware of this technique, and I look forward to watching it be put into play next week.

I was so proud of Bacon for pointing it out to me, I let him out of the cone of silence and gave him back his rocket-shorts. Now he's just taking some practice loops on the back porch. Hey, Bacon, is that the neighbor's cat? Bacon, cats can't fly! Bacon, look out!

Oh, Bacon!

Bacon sez: McCain is pooing in the tub!

Okay, if you were inventing and building a robot monkey, you probably wouldn't make a digestive system complete with robot-monkey poo. But I wanted Bacon to feel as much like a real monkey as possible, so he eats and poos just like a real primate. What I didn't take into account is that Bacon has toddler's love of turd flinging combined with the accuracy of a guided missle system. It can get pretty gross.

But Bacon knows from poo. So when the little fellah showed me a picture of John McCain followed by this video, I knew he was trying to tell me something.



After a few minutes of wacky miming on Bacon's part, I figured it out. Much like the similarly white-haired polar bear, McCain is dropping a cloudy load into the pool every time he does some dirt to Obama like questioning his patriotism. When you poo in the tub, it makes everything cloudy, and while other people in the tub can scold you for being nasty, they're still covered in poo. That previous sentence encapsulates the entire Republican electoral mindset.

Obama is too cool a dude to cop a squat in public, which is part of his appeal. Bacon, however, is not. Are you? No, Bacon, I don't need a demonstration. Out of the tub, Bacon! Don't do it ...

Oh, Bacon!

Bacon presents: Why John McCain's comb-over says everything about him.

Being a robot monkey, Bacon is both the best and worst research assistant I could have. His computational skills allow him to delve into deep pools of data. However, his love of monkeyshines means often all he brings back are pictures of apple butter. And today when I asked him to help me find pictures of John McCain's comb-over, Bacon went and hid in the toilet. Maybe it's because one time Bacon caught the top of his head on fire. Or maybe it's because John McCain's comb-over tells you everything you need to know about the man, and it's not pretty. Literally.

1). It's dishonest
When a man sports a comb-over, he gets up every morning and pastes a lie to the top of his skull. It's a slicked-over crown of falsehood placed directly over the brain, where its fib juice can slowly drip down, basting the noggin with a marinade of untruths. Every glance in the mirror: a lie. Every photograph: a lie. I am not bald, his skull whispers. I sprout hair from every follicle.

John McCain is no stranger to living a lie. The question is, which came first? The mind full of deceit or the shellacked Helmet of Deception? The world may never know.

2). It speaks of poor character
What type of man sports a comb-over? The kind of man who scans his local paper for which bars are having a "ladies night" that night. The sort of fellow who fluffs his chest hair. The type of dude who would hit on a woman almost half his age while his disfigured wife waits for him at home. You know. A douchebag.

A comb-over speaks of a reservoir of insecurity at the heart of a man. It suggests a man so worried about appearing weak that he might lash out in anger. In fact, it was a remark about his thinning hair that led to McCain's infamous comeback to his wife, "At least I don't plaster on the makeup like a trollop, you cunt."

A bald man is a bold man. Take Patrick Stewart. Three years junior to McCain, he looks more than a decade younger thanks to that gleaming bald pate of his. He looks vigorous, friendly, even sexy. Patrick Stewart is pretty much the anti-McCain.

3. It is ham-handed
To wear a comb-over is to say you think the rest of the world is dim. It's not a Machiavellian move to grow your fringe of hair down to your chin and then comb it over your bald pate. A man who thinks he can fool the world this way thinks he can win an election by slinging mud, and can manage foreign policy by declaring war on as many nations as possible as soon as possible.

And hey, if you think that McCain always wears a ball cap outdoors to protect his skin, think again. He's protecting himself from gusts of wind. One picture of McCain in a windstorm and this election is over.

4). It is out of touch
"Ageism" is a funny term. People speak about it like it's a bad thing then get angry when R. Kelly fails to practice it. We employ ageism in this country all the time, and thank God. We don't let seven-year-olds drive at all, and we make grandma take a vision test if she wants to keep driving. There is no shame in getting older (see Patrick Stewart above), but after a certain age your abilities to lead the free world start to trail off. If you don't understand computers, perhaps you aren't the person to blaze the path for the upcoming technology and alternative fuels revolution. And if you think the comb-over is a good hair choice, then maybe you don't really know what's going on in America right now.

Good lord, he can't even really pull it off anymore. Those side hairs are so long, if he combed them the other way around his skull he'd have an Amish beard. And they still show plenty o' scalp there in the front and the back. An aerial view of his head would look like a white "H".

Okay, Bacon, we're done talking about it. You can quit hiding now. Bacon? What are you doing in there? Did you eat this whole roll of toilet paper?

Oh, Bacon!

Bacon's favorite Obama videos!

Bacon, being a robot monkey, has the intellect of Stephen Hawking and the impulse control of Amy Winehouse. That's how Bacon is able to both invent his famous rocket-shorts and get his genitals caught in the freezer door. In an attempt to keep the apartment standing, I introduced Bacon to YouTube. I have to scrub apple-butter off of the keyboard every night, but if it keeps him from trying to shave the rabbit again, I'm all for it.

Here's a collection of some of Bacon's favorite underground Obama videos. Watch them, and if you'd like to, donate your time and money to the campaign. I'm sure Bacon would say thanks. Right, Bac ... hey, Bacon, no rocket-shorts in the house! Hey, that sliding glass door is still closed! Watch out!

Oh, Bacon!

The Videos:

Baracky II

Barack Roll

"I inhaled frequently"

90210 Nightmare (Okay, it doesn't have anything to do with the election, but Bacon loves it.)

Approval

Meet Bacon the Robot Monkey!

Several years ago I invented and built a robot monkey who I named Bacon. With the computational abilities of Deep Blue and the fun-lovin' mania of a toddler on Red Bull, Bacon can certainly be a handful to take care of, especially when he's wearing his rocket-shorts.

Hey, Bacon, get down from there! That banana creme pie is for after dinner.

Sorry. Anyway, Bacon's days are usually filled with monkeyshines and calamity, but recently I noticed he's been a little down in the dumps. When I asked him what's wrong, he didn't answer -- he's a robot monkey, after all. But I saw he'd just defecated all over a recent newspaper whose main story concerned all the nasty, low-down campaigning that John McCain and the Republicans are doing this year. Bacon couldn't say it, but I could tell that the thought of another Republican in the White House nearly broke his mechanical monkey heart.

I've never bothered giving money or spending time on a politician before, but I'm doing it now. Not just because I think Obama's pretty cool. Not just because McCain can't wait for us to get into another war or three. Or even because I'm unemployed and have some time on my hands. No, I'm doing it for Bacon, and all the other little robot monkeys and whatnots who deserve a chance to live in a pretty cool country that doesn't totally suck.

Please take a minute to check out our page and make a donation of any size. A little scratch now could go a long way later on. Also, if you know someone who could spare ten bucks for Obama, ask them to do so, either through our page or just on their own.

http://my.barackobama.com/page/outreach/view/main/bacontherobotmonkey

Bacon thanks you. Hey, hold on. Bacon! Where'd you get ten pounds of chicken feathers? Put those down! Get away from that ceiling fan! Aiiiee!

Oh, Bacon!