"Growing Old"
Friday, January 27, 2012
"Free Speech Show" - Growing Old - January 27, 2012
Here's today's podcast of the "Free Speech Show" with me,
Laurie Buckley and host Bill Bronner:
"Comedy Nation This Week" - January 27, 2012
Here's today's episode of "Comedy Nation This Week" with me, Laurie Buckley, and host Bill Bronner:
The Panel Discusses the State of the Union, the GOP Florida debates and more.
Trippitorial: Class Warfare
When Rick Perry pulled out
of the Republican race, I expected him to endorse me, but instead he endorsed a
Newt. I don’t blame him though. Newt probably yelled at him, and we know how
mean Newt can be. Maybe he thinks he can be Newt’s Vice
President. He could be the new Dan Quayle. Nobody’s would assassinate Newt Gingrich
if Rick Perry was the Vice President.
Jon Huntsman was poised to
endorse me, but obviously somebody got to him and he ended up endorsing twit Romney.
It’s almost like they don’t even want to acknowledge I’m in this race even
though I’m not.
And then Huntsman accused ex-president Barack Obama (if I
get in this race) of provoking class warfare. The only thing Jon Huntsman
provoked was James Tripp, even if I’m not running.
Who is causing class
warfare? The people eliminating the middle class. It’s not the people being
eliminated. Shut your pie hole! It’s like Newt Gingrich blaming me for him
eating too many Twinkies! Shut your pie hole, Newt and you won’t get so fat! If
you’re not a poster boy for gluttony, then you’re probably a poster boy for
something else that may explode at any minute from a continual internal
combustion of bile.
The class who benefit by
exploiting another class doesn’t want it pointed out. They’d make it illegal to
discuss if they could get away with it. They’d call it sedition, or some word
like that that fat people say to keep skinny people from eating the food.
But I digress, and it’s a
good thing too. The upper class accuses the lower class of fomenting a class
war to silence them. The rich foment a class war by hoarding all the wealth. If
the poor foment anything it won’t be a war, it will be a revolution. Wars are
for the rich. You need uniforms. The poor can’t afford uniforms! They’re lucky
to have shoes!
So shut up about a class
war, because if you want a class war, you’ll get a class war. At least that’s
what Rambo said…I think.
Be careful what rhetoric you
pursue, you may not like where it takes you, you silly primary Republicans! Put
that in your twitter and tweet it!
I’m James Tripp and I’ll be back next week with another Trippitorial!
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Live Tweets From GOP Debate Part XIV
will be tweeting the #GOPDebate
beginning at 5 pm PST and rooting for Sheldon #Adelson.
Will the crowd be muzzled or rabid?
They
continue to use the same wardrobe consultant.
Where's #SteveTyler
when you need him?
is thrilled to be tweeting.
Why is no
one yelling?
Someone
got to them.
Let's get
those grandmothers to work!
"I
doubt that's my ad. I'm not sure if I'm running for President." #Romney
Do
politicians need more #regulation?
I think
it's important we don't use the word castigate. #Romney
doesn't feel so good himself.
One of
these days...bang...zoom... #NASA
The Panama
Canal is beinc widened so #Newt can fit through.
We need to
beat #China
to the moon before they build a wall around it.
"We
need to repeal insurance reform and go to the moon and unseat Castro." #Newt
First they
came for the young's health care, then they came for the older #American's
#healthcare.
A teaser
about the candidates wives #WolfBlitzer?
#Tacky.
Whose
father can beat up whose father #WolfBlitzer?
Whose
girlfriend will make the best first mistress #WolfBlitzer?
What
reporter will be the best White House press corps reporter #WolfBlitzer?
What kind
of a tree would you be #WolfBlitzer?
Did you
write these questions yourself #WolfBlitzer?
Let's get
back to the debate #WolfBlitzer.
It's about
time someone invade the #BayofPigs!
We should
poison #Castro
with a cigar.
We need a
blockade around #Cuba!
One of
these things is not like the others. #RonPaul
Mrs. #Gingrich
#3's hair has not moved since the last debate.
will move
the capital of the #USA to #Maui. #CNNDebate
I have
more money than anyone else. #Romney
I can't
wait until the next #GOPDebate!
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Live Tweets from the State of the Union
January
24, 2012, 3:54 pm PST James Tripp @thejamestripp
will be live tweeting the State of the Union tonight beginning at 6
pm PST. Meanwhile, check out this DVD extra: youtu.be/FxwcJx0-21E
is hoping the #GOP
side acts like a #GOPDebate audience.
Hail to the tweets
It looks like John Kerry was Swift
Boated again.
I'll bet if #NewtGingrich
was hugging Congresswoman #Giffords,
he'd leave her.
Republicans unsure if they should
applaud America.
Obama should run for President.
When Obama asked everyone to work
together, only one side was applauding.
The #GOP like
the rules the way they are.
I helped bail out #GM
and I don't even own a car.
"The American #Auto
industry is back!" Cough! Hack!
doesn't
know if it's a good thing that a lock maker is working at full capacity.
What kind of tax cut should a
comedian get?
Can you [Obama]
sign my tax form?
I will go
to any market and not find any American products.
Our workers
are the most productive in the world as long as I can leave early on Friday.
Obama was
supposed to point at me in the chamber, but there was no point.
If this
was a #GOPDebate, when #Obama
said, "Lay off teachers..." there would have been applause.
"Boots on the Border"
sounds like a #Porn
movie.
Oil isn't
enough. I want more, more, more!
The gas in
the chamber could last 200 years.
How will
the #oil
industry survive without tax credits?
Send #Obama
a bill that creates a job for me.
"Fair
share of taxes?" #MittRomney is covering his ears.
Is #ChrisDodd
listening?
Finally "Finally."
The #2012 campaign is off and
running.
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
From the Archives: The Fenced Letter
When I was a reporter
for the Martha’s Vineyard Times
during the nineteen-eighties, one of
my beats was the town of Oak Bluffs, Massachusetts. A story I covered concerned
a private beach club, the East Chop Beach Club, suing the town over the
ownership of a bulkhead.
At the turn of the 20th
century, the body of water adjacent to the beach club was known as Squash Pond
and was probably fresh water. At that time, about 300 feet of beach land was
taken by eminent domain and a channel was dredged, creating a salt water
harbor. In the 1930’s the town built a bulkhead. In order to do this, Oak
Bluffs was granted an easement to give them access to build and maintain the
bulkhead. Members of the town and residents of Oak Bluffs both shared the use
of the bulkhead. In 1958, the beach club became a yacht club but kept the beach
club name. The town said that they maintained the bulkhead until 1978, when the
private club constructed a gate at the entrance to the bulkhead, limiting the
town’s access.
The town owned two acres of beachfront adjacent
to the club and you had to cross over club owned land to get to it. This
easement remained unobstructed and I would often use that stretch of beach as
it was close to where I lived. I would also jog through there during my morning
run. One dawn I noticed that the club had started to construct a second fence.
This one was on the beach separating their beach from the town beach. It was an
eyesore.
By this time, I had
quit the Martha’s Vineyard Times
twice, which is another story. I was working at a radio station, but this
didn’t seem like much of a radio story. It was more of a literary event. I
decided to write a letter to the editor and in addition to my former paper, I
also submitted it to the Martha's Vineyard
Gazette, which was established in 1846. The
Martha’s Vineyard Times was established right before I got there. That’s
another story.
I remember when I hand
delivered the letter to my old paper, the News Editor asked, “Is this an
exclusive? Are you just giving this to us?”
And a reporter who knew
me better than he did said, “No, he wants this to be read.”
She was right. I gave
the letter to both papers. As a matter of fact, I gave it to the Gazette first. They had an earlier
filing deadline.
So here’s the letter I
wrote. There’s a lot of metaphor. You
may be able to tell I had recently graduated from college with an English
degree. Some people liked this letter.
Some people did not. This is what it said:
August 12, 1985
To the Editor:
I was sitting on the
public beach in East Chop early one morning late last week, reading a book,
when Robert Frost suddenly said, “Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
that sends the frozen-ground-swell under it and spills the upper boulders in
the sun, and makes gaps even two can pass abreast.” It was not an unusual thing
for the poet to say. He had said it before.
I looked up from the
book and noticed that someone had started to build a wooden fence to separate
the town owned beach from that portion claimed by the East Chop Beach Club.
Whoever the builder was must have done
it during the night or on a previous day, for there was no one at the half
completed structure to take responsibility for what was being done.
"The gaps I
mean," Frost said, "No one has seen them made or heard them made, but
at spring mending-time we find them there."
I stood up and walked
over to investigate the fence builder’s handiwork. I brought the book with me.
It was shaping up to be
a fine fence as fences go. The builder had gone to the trouble of pouring
concrete into the sand to anchor the wooden poles. Further down the line, there
were already other holes dug to pour more concrete in to anchor more poles to
complete the structure.
As I said before, it
was early. The beach was deserted. I looked over at the beach club building and
its structure seemed to say, “Good fences make good neighbors.” I think if
there had been a member there, I would have asked him to explain.
And Frost said,
"We do not need the wall: He is all pine and I am apple orchard. My apple
trees will never get across and eat the cones under his pines.”
Although I don’t always
agree with Frost, he was right this time. But I didn’t tell him because I would
never hear the end of it. I put the book down and ran into the water.
There, the beach club had no authority
to build a wall.
On Saturday I returned
to the beach with my book and the fence was almost complete. There was someone
in the employ of the beach club making a great deal of noise, banging wooden
boards onto the fence. The worker then proceeded to staple signs to the board
which read: "WARNING! NO TRESPASSING. THIS IS PRIVATE PROPERTY.
Hunting, Fishing, Trapping or Trespassing for any purpose is Prohibited Under
Penalty of the Law." It was a common sign, not made expressly for the
club.
When the worker was
done, so was the fence done. He returned to whatever his other duties were at
the club. Perhaps he worked at the front desk making sure that everyone who
passed his way was a member.
"Before 'I built a
wall," Frost took up where he had left off a previous day, "I'd ask
to know what I was walling in or walling out, and to whom I was like to give
offense." The poet sounded angry, but the beach club did not listen.
I put the book down to
go for a short swim. On my walk to the water I wondered if there would be more
fences at the bulkhead if the beach club won the pending land court case.
"Something there
is," Frost grumbled as I dove into the sound, "that doesn't love a wall, that wants it
down.”
James
Tripp
Oak
Bluffs
The Editor of the Martha’s Vineyard Times gave the
letter the headline: “Frost on Walls.” I forget what banner was used by the Martha’s Vineyard Gazette. One of my
roommates, who sold ads at my paper, asked me if I really had a Robert Frost
book with me. I said, “No.” That seemed to bother him. He shouldn’t have been bothered;
the letter was the result of the scars of a New England liberal arts education.
It was bound to come out that way. He had had a New England business school
education---different perspective. It probably would have bothered him to know
that I really wasn’t at the beach that first day. I was just jogging through.
That’s when I got some of my best ideas. One of my other roommates was a
typesetter for the Gazette. She
typeset my letter. She didn’t get it either. She thought I was weird. Those two
were actually having summer sex with each other---nothing serious. I’m not sure
if they got each other.
It turned out I was
right to put the letter in the Gazette. Someone
on the Planning Commission told me his father read the letter out loud at the
dinner table. The next time the Planning Commission met, they determined the
fence was built without a permit and they made the East Chop Beach Club take it
down.
I don’t know how the
lawsuit turned out. I didn’t stay on the island much longer. I did an internet
search and I couldn’t find anything about it. I don’t really care anyway.
That’s not the point of the story.
I remember that every time
one of the DJ’s at the radio station saw me he said, “Something there is that
doesn’t love a wall, that wants it down.”
Saturday, January 21, 2012
"Free Speech Show" - Making Change - January 20, 2012
Here's yesterday's podcast of the "Free Speech Show" with me,
Laurie Buckley, Patrick Devine and host Bill Bronner:
"Comedy Nation This Week" - January 20, 2012
Here's yesterday's episode of "Comedy Nation This Week" podcast with me, Laurie Buckley, Dave Plunkett and host Bill Bronner:
The panel discusses SOPA, PIPA, the North Carolina GOP Primary, the cruise ship disaster and more.
Tripptitorial: Corporations Want to Control Everything!
From this
day forth, I will no longer be known as James Tripp. I will be known as James Tripp,
Inc. I recently incorporated to avoid federal election spending limits and for the limited liability because I’m liable to do
anything. Was’t Hamlet wronged Laertes? Never Hamlet. Twas Hamlet’s
corporation.
People are
not corporations. Sure, anybody can put an Inc. on their name, but a
corporation is so much more than an individual. For example: an individual
would not think to patent his own DNA, but a corporation would! As a matter of
fact, I don’t own the licensing on several of my chromosomes, which can
sometimes be a problem.
Corporations
want to control everything! They want to control the internet! I’m afraid to
look at porn on the internet, because they’re probably looking at me! The big media companies would like to turn the internet into
something they can control, but they can’t control James Tripp!
I don’t care
about the intellectual property rights of corporations; they’re rights they
stole from my friends! I remember the non-union deals everyone was getting on
those cable shows that ruined stand-up in the 80’s and 90’s. They were
$300-$500 buyouts for unlimited rights. Now the producers of those shows are
selling the performances on DVD, on Hulu, Netflix and any other means of
distribution not yet created and none of my friends are getting paid anything! But
Budd Friedman was able to buy a new monocle. Now he can see out of both eyes. Fie
on corporations, I say! Fie!
You know
what scares big media corporations? In the digital age, intellectual property
originators don’t need them. We no longer need the middle man and creative
corporate accountants to get paid. We just need to set up a website and reach
our audience directly. That’s what scares them.
Corporate
interests want to put a stop to this. They want to keep artists on the
plantation. They’re trying to change the way the internet operates to make it
more like radio and TV where they control the content.
They want to
reshape the internet, which was created by the government with taxpayer money,
so that their content and services---and those of companies that pay steep
fees---will travel quickly along a “fast lane.” Everything else, like “Comedy Nation This Week” would be stuck in a “slow lane.” They want to charge
different prices for different things. They also want to be able to charge
website owners rates for them to be able to access their customers. They want
to make money off of both sides.
SOPA and PIPA
are a flanking a move in the corporate attack on net neutrality. You think
traffic’s bad in LA, wait until you get in the internet slow lane. Hey, I have enough troubles already. Not
only do I have road rage. I have walking rage. Now I’m gonna have internet
rage.
Maybe it’s time to re-regulate
the mainstream media. Regulation of vertical monopolies is not necessarily a
bad thing. This is James Tripp, Inc.; I’ll be back next week with another Trippitorial,
God Damnit!
Thursday, January 19, 2012
Live Tweets From GOP Debate Part XIII
thejamestripp James Tripp
will be live
tweeting the #GOPDebate tonight beginning @5 pm. Meanwhile, relive my 2008 campaign: youtube.com/playlist?list=…
thejamestripp James Tripp
is in
favor of an "open Presidency." youtube.com/playlist?list=…
thejamestripp James Tripp
Just
because #RickPerry suspended his pants, that's no
reason not to tweet the #NCDebate.
thejamestripp James Tripp
They have
to stop making these introductory films for the debates.
We get it.
thejamestripp James Tripp
likes the
urgent music.
We need
another debate during the debate.
They're
all wearing the same suit. It's #RichardNixon
's suit.
Karaoke
singing opens.
It's good
to be here with Ted Healy and #theThreeStooges.
Being
offending is the best defense. #Newt
I'm
shocked...shocked to find there's gambling...
Now it's
the elite media that's to blame!
There's a
lot of #naturalgas onstage.
Crony
capitalism was part of the #Halliburton
#Bush #Cheney
administration.
I hope #RickSantorum
is #praying
now.
"There
are three programs I would cut..."
"We
need a military so strong that #MittRomney
doesn't have to serve in it."
The
expression on #MittRomney 's face makes it seem like he has
a hot water bottle in his pants.
I'm
converting all my #RickPerry is stupid #jokes
into #MittRomney is stupid #jokes.
Which
candidate will drop out during the commercial break?
They're all
still there.
We need to
send someone to Washington who's lived in #Hawaii.
thejamestripp James Tripp
thejamestripp James Tripp
How many
rounds of golf has #Romney played?
Aw, shucks! #Santorum
Boo! #SOPA
"I'm standing for
freedom." Did #MittRomney write that line?
thejamestripp James Tripp
Is that #NewtGingrich
's wife or the head they found in the #HollywoodHills?
Did #RickSantorum
just blow that mike?
The mob
rules! #King
Caesar yields!
We don't
need someone talking to us like a professor. #Gingrich #Newt
"You
voted before Reagan was Reagan..." Huh? #Santorum
thejamestripp James Tripp
Soon there
will only be three and #BuddyRoemer.
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