You say goodbye, I say hello

I'm in mourning over the loss of Pam's blog Musings of a Working Mom. She shut it down last week. She only posted maybe three or four times a week, and sometimes less, but they were quality posts about the senseless war, politics in general, and her adorable family. She toiled for a time on the now defunct blog that Hill Country Gal stared up called The 'Tude, but alas she told me it got to feeling like actual work and she didn't need anymore of that. I'll miss you Pam and I hope maybe one day you'll come back to blog, if you do you better let me know. But things are not all sadness in my personal blog-o-verse because I found two great new to me bloggers. I know, I know, we're all gonna have blog rolls as long as the current President is stupid, but what the heck, am I supposed to do ignore genius?


First up is maybe the coolest chick I've ever seen. Her name is Vikkitikkitavi and her blog is called Bells On.
Holy crap can this gal write. She's left wing and oh so dead on the money. She writes like she must have been doing this for years and years. Her posts are wise beyond her years, heck look how young she is, and she is a joy to read. Even though she writes about politics alot she also writes about other things, like the Tofu Festival she went to recently. She's a braver person than I am for going to a Tofu Festival. I found her through Evil Spock (and speaking of genius, Evil Spock is a feckin' genius if there ever was one), she is one his regular commenters, but then again aren't we all?

To top it off she's from Indiana as well. It seems that all the great bloggers have come from Indiana. Here's the partial list: Vikkitikkitavi, Evil Spock, Liberality, and D Cup. Is there something in the freakin' water up there that makes you damn people so smart, funny, and engaging?

The next great new blogger I found is Bossy, yep that's her blog name. Bossy. And you can see her blog here.
It's a wildly eclectic blog that covers everything from Hillary Clinton's new health plan to Tim Gunn's Guide to Style (I hope she's a Project Runway junkie like me, woo hoo!). And just like another genius blogger I already mentioned, she refers to her self in the third person. She's got a great design and to top it off she even stars in her own super cool homemade videos.

Oops, I almost forgot to give mad love to Dr. Zaius because he was the one who turned me onto Bossy. Thanks Doc.

Holy crap. I'm smitten with both these new gals on my blog roll and I promise you will be too if you check them out. They are on my "must check every day for new content" list.


I'll miss you Pam but the pain of losing you is buffeted by these two new to me blogs.

The honors keep rolling in

The lovely and talented Fran of Franiam awarded me one of these. As I have said before I love getting these awards from fellow bloggers because it means that people are not only reading my stuff, they are responding to it. I feel like Fran is my little sister because she started her blog after mine and I was one of the first few bloggers she blog rolled, well Princess Sparkle Pony and Matty Boy were the first but why quibble when it's my feckin' blog. Fran and I have different views of religion but we agree almost 100 % when it comes to politics. Thanks so much Fran for the honor.

I in turn am supposed to award this now to five other bloggers. My choices are:

1) My brother from another mother Samurai Frog. He's not as political as most but when he writes about politics I think he's dead on. He's also the most provocative pop culture observer and reporter ever.

2) Johnny Yen may not write as much about politics and history as he used to but when he does it's a thing of beauty.

3) I think Pam at Musings of Working Mom and I were either related to one another in a past life or we were the same person. I love her take on the dirty deeds going on in DC and in the Middle East.

4) I just started reading Hill Country Gal, I have a prejudice against Texans that I am working through so no wonder I'm late to her anti Bush party. The woman is by turns mean, funny, and dazzling.

5) Angry Ballerina may not think she is a political writer but she in fact is one. All politics are local and the personal is political, as they say. No one writes better rants about addiction, body image, and life in general than the Peeved Terpsichorean girl. She's got a wisdom way beyond her years.

My interview with a Superheroine

I was reading Pam's blog today and I saw that she had been interviewed by another blogger and as I read her answers I realized how much I had just learned about her from that interview. I already love her blog, and her progressive views so when I got to the end of the piece I saw where she was offering to interview others. Like I told her, I love talking, or in this case, writing about myself so I agreed to answer her 5 questions.

Her first question was, would I run off and live in a tree house high in the Costa Rican jungle with her. I reminded her she was married and had a child and that I had a girlfriend. Her second, third, fourth, and fifth questions were variations on the first so I had to let her down gently. It's never easy crushing someone's dream so I was as nice as I could be. I can only hope that she can muster the strength to go on.

Just kidding folks, Pam was and is a perfect gentlewoman, it's no wonder she is one of my blog heroes, and here are the questions she actually really honestly asked me:

1. You write a lot of snarky things about our government and politics in general. When did you first become politically active/aware? Was it a slow, gradual process or did one event spur your outrage/satire?

I have always been politically aware but only recently have I become active in doing something about the things I feel passionately about. I can remember reading about the political events of the day in the newspapers when I was a young boy. I followed politics all my life and I remember watching both 1972 political conventions, I did not understand much of what I watched because I was only 10 but I was fascinated by the whole spectacle of it. I kept up with it as I grew and when I got to college I double majored in history and political science. After college I went to work and most of the jobs I held until my heart attack required me to keep silent about my political beliefs and opinions. This past spring my girlfriend, who is very politically aware in her own right, saw where MoveOn.org was sponsoring a screening of The Ground Truth, we went to see it and it affected us deeply. We had both been anti war from the start and after seeing that film we finally got off our butts and did something about it. We joined with a local progressive group in our area and we began going to war and impeachment protests and attending other progressive events in our area. We've met some of the smartest and nicest folks through our activism and I hope we meet many many more as we continue to become more progressive and work to end the war.

2. When and why did you start blogging? What is your favorite blog post (that you wrote) of all time? Why is it your favorite?

I started blogging after I read a post by Dr. Zaius this past spring that had been linked on Crooks and Liars. It was about a convention of all the various Jesuses(or would it be Jesusi?), the Baptist Jesus, George Bush Jesus, etc. and it was howlingly funny and oh so dead on the money. Once I saw that that was the type of thing some people were putting on their blogs I knew I had to jump in with both feet and so after a few shitty first tries I finally came up with this submarine sandwich of a blog.

My all time favorite post that I wrote is Ingmar Bergman Reviews the 2nd Republican Debate. I only watched two minutes of a five minutes of the debate wrap up, it was all I could stand, and then I wrote that post. It combines my love of surrealism, foreign film, the arcane and esoteric, and mockery. I just pulled pictures off the web and wrote it off the top of my head. As I was writing it I was laughing so hard I had tears in my eyes and I was afraid I would wake my sleeping girlfriend up. It still cracks me up when I read it now.

I'm also partial to my Deep in the Bowels of the White House posts and my Interviews with the Republican Presidential Candidates posts.

3. Where/how did you come up with your blog alias (I'm assuming it's not your real name). Is there any deep meaning attached to it, besides being freakin' hilarious?


I've always found our simian cousins interesting and amusing. I've loved Jane Goodall and her work with chimps since the minute I heard about her and the late Dian Fossey as well. I'm a sucker for most every monkey or ape related documentary on TV. I also love aliteration and repetition, it's must be one of the results of all those years I spent doing improv comedy. So I chose the alias because I thought it was funny that a blog could be written by a monkey, a monkey with a doctorate no less. I also loved how stupidly crazy the name sounded, it made me laugh when I wrote out 'Dr. Monkey Von Monkerstein.'

4. What childhood event(s) helped shape who you are today? Where/how did you develop this wicked funny sense of humor?

I got my sense of humor from my Mom. She was a joker and I learned to follow suit and the biggest childhood event that shaped me was her death when I was ten. We kids were sent to live with an aunt and uncle because my Dad was not able to care for us properly. It was during those years that I honed my sense of humor, it was a defense mechanism because life with them was so bizzare and fucked up at times. Also when I discovered that the hot chicks in high school would let me hang out with them if I made them laugh, then I really went into high gear. When I got to college I discovered that there were other people out there who were as funny as I thought I was and or who were a different kind of funny, so I just rolled with it and let it grow organically.

5. If you could sit across from Dumbya, what would you say to him? How do you think he would respond?

I'd say, "Man you sure lied your ass off didn't you? You said you were a uniter and not a divider but you kept this country divided for 8 fucking years because it suited your political needs to do so. You're place in history is assured but it's not gonna be a good place you idiot. You will be thought of as a stubborn stupid ass of a man who put his hard right wing agenda ahead of the good of the country. You started a war for no other reason than to make money for your pals in the corporate world and you have the blood of hundreds of thousands of people on your hands. If it was up to me your stupid ass would be in Gitmo right this second and your guards would be family members of Iraqi's and Afghanis who died in your useless war."

He'd respond like he always does, with a patronizing little chuckle and he'd give me that stomach turning little wink he gives. Then he'd send in Dick and Mary Cheney to kick my ass because he is too much of a chickenhawk to do it himself.

Thanks Pam for the opportunity to give my readers a peek under the fez!!!

Here's where I pay the price of my interview:

Now, do YOU want to be interviewed?

Interview rules:

1.Leave me a comment saying "Interview me."

2. I will respond by emailing you five questions. I get to pick the questions.

3. You will update your blog with a post containing your the answers to the questions.

4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.

5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.