Pop Art: The Return, by Arthur Tebbel – Pop Art #210 | @MDWorld

January 8, 2013 Arthur Tebbel 1 Comment

Dear Art,
Where the fuck have you been?
-The entire Michael Davis World community

Everyone,
I am so sorry everyone for that completely unplanned holiday leave of absence.  If you all rushed to your computers after opening presents Christmas morning or after shaking off your hangovers on New Year’s Day only to emerge crestfallen that there was no new Pop Art I can only offer my most sincere apology.  I had a bizarre cocktail of personal issues and I’ll try my hardest to make sure something like this never happens again.  Let’s get a little bit of free-form snark on the important events of the last two weeks.

The “fiscal cliff” was averted at the eleventh hour.  The resulting deal was panned by both the left and the right as not being good enough so we can all be sure there was at least some compromise involved.  I can’t really tell you what was accomplished though.  More than 80 percent of the Bush tax cuts were kept in place in terms of impact on government revenue but there were a bunch of deduction caps and loophole closures and other razzmatazz that makes it look like people are actually doing work.

Oh, and they pushed the automatic cuts back two months so the news should start talking about the perils of going over the fiscal cliff about 20 minutes after you finish reading this.  I don’t really know what the point of all this crap was if we have to go through it again immediately.   At least it lines up with the debt ceiling debate so there will only be one giant stupid legislative battle going on for the next two months.  Furthermore, considering spending and deficit are the only topics any politicians want to talk about anymore no matter how loudly economists scream that it doesn’t really affect things maybe all legislative sessions should just be about that now.  Efficiency matters folks.

My favorite entertainment story of late has been Jimmy Kimmel moving up to 11:35 to compete more directly with Leno and Letterman.  I’ve never watched Kimmel and I probably won’t start now but that’s mostly from a general objection to a pre-taped show being billed as live.  What’s made this story really great is that The Tonight Show responded by moving up from 11:35 to 11:34 proving once again that Jay Leno might be the pettiest man in show business.  He can’t just let one news cycle go?  Line up all the programs and let the best one win.  I feel like there must be someone at The Tonight Show that just sits around all day with a bunch of Google news alerts set up waiting for anything to pop about any other late night host so Jay Leno can do exactly the same thing.  The man has four colonoscopies a year just so he doesn’t have to give a morsel of press to Letterman, Ferguson, Conan or Kimmel.  You’ve got the biggest audience Jay, you don’t have to be this much of a dick about everything the old people that prop your numbers up aren’t going anywhere except slowly to their grave.