tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-51199095373049359792026-05-11T06:10:23.924-04:00                 The official blog of notorious former African dictator Mobutu Sese SekoMobutuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00248812411837063895noreply@blogger.comBlogger503125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5119909537304935979.post-57010514277017892162015-01-30T17:33:00.002-05:002015-01-30T17:34:15.278-05:00

Note: This piece originally appeared somewhere that is not here. It was taken down for a project. (DO NOT ASK WHAT THE PROJECT IS.) Here's a horrifying game you can play during this Sunday's Super Bowl and the nearly 12 hours of pre- and postgame content: count the number of times you hear some variation of "deflated balls" and compare that to the number of times during Super Bowls XLV or XLVII

Mobutuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00248812411837063895noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5119909537304935979.post-15978233634755766782014-11-05T13:58:00.001-05:002014-11-05T14:41:06.771-05:00

The midterm elections have come and gone, which means it's time to play a game we've been waiting for since 2012: Pick the GOP Frontrunners! Another slate of Democrats has been stomped, leaving a fertile field of Republican bullies ready to whip holy hell on Communists, sodomites, licensing firearms, and unlicensed vaginas. Not to mention Ebola. I know what you're going to say: there are so

Mobutuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00248812411837063895noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5119909537304935979.post-75100830987258657292014-09-03T15:06:00.001-04:002014-09-03T15:15:09.182-04:00

So we all know Duck Dynasty's patriarch Phil Robertson is a bigot, and a homophobe (I wrote about him in The New Republic, if that's something you care about), and a fraudulent country club Republican dressed up like a bayou redneck to move more units of redneck product, and generally he's about as useful to the rest of the world as a copy of The Second Sex is to his audience the minute they

Mobutuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00248812411837063895noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5119909537304935979.post-56942078903487276242014-07-16T00:58:00.000-04:002014-07-16T12:13:43.063-04:00

Ordinarily I'd assume that I did a good enough job last time selling you on my friend Jay W. Friedman's podcast. And I would likewise assume that the new page for podcast appearances I put up would be a sufficient resource for finding out where and when I'd droned on and on like an asshole about something. But this time I joined Jay to talk about Bill O'Reilly's Those Who Trespass, and nothing

Mobutuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00248812411837063895noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5119909537304935979.post-38042073070393792212014-04-01T13:43:00.003-04:002014-04-01T14:10:41.793-04:00

Some of you may know my friend Jay Friedman. For those of you who don't, he's one of those exasperatingly prolific creative people who's always doing something interesting when you're doing things like marathoning Magnum P.I. on Netflix for no reason. In addition to working a full-time job, Jay might as well also be a full-time MC. And when he's not releasing another mixtape under the

Mobutuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00248812411837063895noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5119909537304935979.post-87173861025418963292014-01-13T02:53:00.001-05:002014-01-13T03:26:02.204-05:00

As you may know, we the good people of Et tu, Mr. Destructo? conduct an annual personal test of our abilities. We do not remark upon things as we see them and ask, "Why?" We look at things as they have never been—a machine that makes my ex-girlfriend STACY think about me when she hears any song on the radio, even "Thick As A Brick"—and ask, "Why not?" Then we create that machine. In the above

Mobutuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00248812411837063895noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5119909537304935979.post-41499647391268778582013-11-15T14:03:00.000-05:002013-11-15T14:03:03.761-05:00

I feel conflicted about Rob Ford. On the one hand, it's impossible not to feel a wrench of pity and also a sense of self-loathing creepiness at bearing witness to someone's total self-destruction. On the other hand, Jacobin neatly outlines all the ways in which Ford is a civically and socially destructive asshole of the first order. If he's going to do his damnedest to blow everything else up,

Mobutuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00248812411837063895noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5119909537304935979.post-59040106173703080142013-10-21T00:24:00.000-04:002013-10-21T00:32:21.731-04:00

Note: Today, we, the good people of Et tu, Mr. Destructo? confront the fact that we stopped caring about politics after Mormon Flanders lost the 2012 election. But, like aging and death, democracy doesn't stop; it even happens during odd-numbered years. Thus we turn for voting advice to Robert Wheel, a Brooklyn resident who went to law school when his job in the Kerry White House didn't pan out.

Mobutuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00248812411837063895noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5119909537304935979.post-18664675250994218502013-09-11T12:39:00.002-04:002013-09-11T17:13:13.838-04:00

I never seem to do anything for 9/11. I know I should. Call some friends, agree ahead of time to get together, have some kind of blast for 18 or 19 of us, but it always escapes my mind. I used to be better organized. I can never seem to remember where I was on its anniversary, either. Take two years ago: I'm pretty sure I was at a ballgame, but I couldn't tell you one way or the other. I know I

Mobutuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00248812411837063895noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5119909537304935979.post-7658252279511800432013-07-15T03:49:00.001-04:002013-08-09T01:04:09.090-04:00

I have not always liked Stevie Nicks, and I wouldn't blame anyone for suspecting that I bear her animosity to this day. For years now, I've been writing what amount to Bill Brasky jokes about her, inserting her into situations wherever something stupid seems like it would be funnier if a proper name were attached. I need to describe someone rabidly beating a monoglot au pair? Sure, have Stevie

Mobutuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00248812411837063895noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5119909537304935979.post-48388129356323075612013-06-03T03:14:00.002-04:002013-06-03T12:45:32.561-04:00

Well, strictly speaking, not every Fast and Furious movie. It took another day to be able to see the sixth one. But, for one thirteen-hour period, I watched the first five Fast and Furious movies in a row, for the first time. It was a journey of discovery and endurance. And, despite beginning under such silly and inauspicious circumstances, it was my pleasure. Click the pic to continue

Mobutuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00248812411837063895noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5119909537304935979.post-10051918425044427762013-05-21T16:07:00.003-04:002013-05-21T16:07:31.491-04:00

Conservative pundits seem especially fond of a type of filler article: the list of works in some form of entertainment that argues for a Republican bedrock that is the foundation of our art. Forget a story of marginalized immigrants creating a mirror government to protect them when they're shut out of the real one, The Godfather is actually about family values. Look, they all eat dinner together!

Mobutuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00248812411837063895noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5119909537304935979.post-7450876452434019202013-05-14T03:36:00.001-04:002013-05-14T04:16:17.072-04:00

Early this morning, the New York Times published an op-ed from actress Angelina Jolie in which she announced that she had undergone a double mastectomy, the surgical removal of both breasts. Those people who might joke that Jolie is best known to male moviegoers of the Internet generation for her breasts have a good point, and they get right to why her op-ed offers a welcome gesture.

Mobutuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00248812411837063895noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5119909537304935979.post-72878765283514032792013-05-07T04:44:00.000-04:002013-06-01T23:54:59.265-04:00

For the vast majority of users, Twitter is not important. I understand that. In the same way that I find scrapbooking a life-draining expense of time and creative effort, I can understand someone looking at my Twitter feed as 30,000+ depressing examples of life pissed into a void. But, just as scrapbooking gives a mode of expression to its fans, we have to acknowledge that Twitter provides a

Mobutuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00248812411837063895noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5119909537304935979.post-55906322854737277722013-05-03T10:18:00.001-04:002013-05-21T16:12:27.204-04:00

When I wrote my final "America's Screaming Conscience" column for Gawker, I remember sitting at the keyboard, panicked about how much my world would be upended by simply changing my name. I knew some readers would instantly hate me, while others would resent having assumptions about me so radically altered. In a frankly very lucky, if not privileged, sense, it was like "coming out" on an extreme

Mobutuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00248812411837063895noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5119909537304935979.post-5132859766956521432013-04-26T09:00:00.000-04:002013-04-26T20:13:07.280-04:00

Note: We, the good people of Et tu, Mr. Destructo? are proud to present Criterion Recollection, an analysis of the popular Criterion Collection of historic and unique achievements in film. Your guide is Mark Brendle, a noted chair connoisseur and fiction author. Brendle lives in the Pacific Northwest in a small post-recycled yurt adjacent to America's largest family-owned retail video and book

Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5119909537304935979.post-7548338007311404772013-04-25T05:42:00.000-04:002014-02-28T17:30:07.983-05:00

Matthew Yglesias—a Norelco marketing experiment to see if a hand-drawn Sharpie beard on a peeled potato could sell men's earrings—wrote a morally and intellectually odious article at his second job yesterday. His Slate column, "Different Places Have Different Safety Rules and That's OK," addressed the deaths of 161 workers in a factory collapse in Bangladesh with the tone they so richly deserved:

Mobutuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00248812411837063895noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5119909537304935979.post-66857446263642970902013-04-22T02:41:00.001-04:002013-04-22T04:51:32.166-04:00

In a week that saw major global earthquakes, a bombing at a marathon, a city shut down, a series of deadly shootouts, the defeat of even a toothless piece of gun-control legislation, the Internet and the New York Post proudly labeling several innocent people as terrorists, hate crimes against Muslims, and a massive and deadly explosion in Texas—well, after a week like that, it takes some serious

Mobutuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00248812411837063895noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5119909537304935979.post-56753856427584796622013-04-18T13:26:00.001-04:002013-04-18T15:08:53.970-04:00

Yesterday, the US Senate killed even a candyass, quintessentially senatorial approach to gun control. You could have cocked a single eye at the television with lid at half mast while falling into a K-hole and still had enough situational awareness to be furious at the lobbyist capture of our most venerated, sclerotic chamber full of war profiteering racists, foot-draggers and bozos. This was,

Mobutuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00248812411837063895noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5119909537304935979.post-13592133376949098722013-04-10T09:30:00.000-04:002013-04-25T04:31:42.486-04:00

Last Monday, New Inquiry blogger Aaron Bady audited the word satire and made it clear. He wrote, "If something is not taken to be satire, it fails as satire. [It's] an effect, and everything depends on how the joke is received, what the author intended, what the circumstances were in which it was made, and so on." It's an interesting definition, both for the way it's made and the assumptions

Mobutuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00248812411837063895noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5119909537304935979.post-52340542379194955922013-04-05T12:36:00.001-04:002013-04-10T01:42:38.824-04:00

Note: Today, we, the good people of Et tu, Mr. Destructo? turn for insight to our Managing Editor General Rehavam "Gandhi" Ze'evi, former Israeli Minister of Tourism. Having faked his assassination in the Mt. Scopus Hyatt Hotel, the General has been in deep cover, in Judea and Samaria. He last joined us for a look at Big Mark Brendle's Radio Fragments. Dinesh D'Souza: Portrait Of The Failure As

Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5119909537304935979.post-5093998916016066252013-02-01T12:52:00.001-05:002013-02-01T13:09:34.687-05:00

In these times of economic peril—will the Dow crack 14,000 again? Where can I sell my plasma for cash? Can I volunteer for jury duty?—we, the creatives at Et tu, Mr. Destructo?, draw what succor we can from the only financial forecast any human heart needs: the word of the Prince of Peace himself, Jesus Christ. As the First Epistle of Peter tells us, "God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to

Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5119909537304935979.post-1051874771336029932013-01-08T06:11:00.000-05:002013-01-08T13:47:30.429-05:00

Note: Today, we, the good people of Et tu, Mr. Destructo? turn for insight to General Rehavam "Gandhi" Ze'evi, former Israeli Minister of Tourism. Having faked his assassination in the Mt. Scopus Hyatt Hotel, the General has been in deep cover, in Judea and Samaria. He last joined us to explain how Christopher Hitchens should burn in hell, how we can help Andrew Breitbart get there and how

Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5119909537304935979.post-56080618132280069792012-09-25T20:57:00.003-04:002012-09-25T20:58:54.291-04:00

About a month ago, I started tweeting at Rafalca, Ann Romney's personal torture horse, who Ann took to England to riverdance in humiliating circles after years of ruining her youth. I even kind of hoped to get a little trending hashtag going for a while, maybe to push Rafalca to break the silence and the cycle of abuse. She never replied. Needless to say, it got discouraging after a while,

Mobutuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00248812411837063895noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5119909537304935979.post-40438175115120858112012-08-11T13:20:00.002-04:002012-08-11T13:26:40.126-04:00

There's something kind of wondrous about watching major world events unfold via a late-night Twitter feed. While a lot of the people hanging around are Aussies or Kiwis and thus up at totally reasonable hours, everyone else is drunk, insomniac, a crank, a news junkie or a dangerous loner. And, because there are fewer people around — and because those who are seem more forthrightly oddball — the

Mobutuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00248812411837063895noreply@blogger.com