Strange Bedfellows and Baseball
As you might have already heard Tucker Carlson and Donald Trump expressed admiration or — at the very least — a lack of pissed-offed-ness about Vladimir Putin and his invasion of Ukraine and I’m now being told you say “Ukraine” and not “the Ukraine” and if I’ve got that wrong my apologies, but my current issue of Political Correctness Monthly has yet to arrive in the mail.
(Hey, figure out what you want to be called and I’ll be happy to call you that, but if you keep changing your mind about what you want to be called don’t be surprised if I don’t know your latest preference.)
After their pro-Putin comments went over like a lead balloon (a simile that assumes it’s still OK to say “balloon” and not “spherical gas-filled object” which might cause confusion because it would also describe so many of our political leaders) Carlson and Trump modified their pro-Putin statements which shows they’re not afraid to have really strong political opinions as long as the public first tells them what those really strong political opinions should be.
Anyway…
Since Republicans used to hate the Russians and call anyone who didn’t want to nuke Canada a “pinko” how did they come to admire Vladimir Putin?
Lucky for you, I found an article about that and the answer is:
Republicans wanted to make Barack Obama look bad and effeminate (y’know, the kind of guy you might catch doing something unmanly like reading a book) so they started comparing him to Putin, who did stuff like judo and wresting bears and alligators and didn’t mind posing shirtless while riding a horse.
Then Republicans could say:
“You never see Obama doing anything like that.”
To which Democrats could reply:
“Yeah, maybe that’s because Obama’s 6’ 2” and not five feet, five inches tall and over-compensating for being a Russian Member of the Lollipop Guild.”
It must be humiliating to be a feared killer who makes other men quake in their boots and then meet Melania Trump and realize she could dunk on you.
And now a word about shirtless men.
The Dig-Me Tribe
OK, for starters I’m not endorsing or criticizing the term “Dig-Me Tribe” which may or may not have its origins in the word “pygmy” which might now be considered offensive and if it is, there’s a whole lot of animals and plants that need renaming; things like “pygmy hippopotamus” and “pygmy date palm” which are real things and when you google “is pygmy offensive” here’s part of the answer you’ll get:
“The word 'Pygmy' is sometimes used derogatorily by non-Pygmies. Using it bluntly may thus be offensive, which can easily be avoided by explicitly detailing the underlying categorization criteria. Surprisingly, some Pygmies may use the term themselves.”
So in order to avoid this PC shitstorm (and if you live in the Midwest you already have just about all the bad weather you can handle) I’ll just say I’m reporting the existence of the term “Dig-Me Tribe” and it comes from baseball and is used to describe any player who wears too many gold chains and wristbands and the latest shades and has two sets of gloves – one for batting, one for running the bases – hanging from his back pockets because it looks really cool and while the player is posing in the on-deck circle, a blue-collar-non-gold-chain type player might say:
“That dude’s in the Dig-Me Tribe.”
As in:
“Look how cool I am…dig me.”
Anyway…
Just a personal opinion (which, when you come right down to it is all any of us have) but anytime you see an old guy take off his shirt, he thinks he looks great which can indicate failing eyesight, a shortage of mirrors at home or someone who’s completely delusional and thinks smoking-hot women on the internet who say they’re looking for an “older, and if possible, wildly out-of-shape man” are sincere and I don’t know about you, but I’ll believe in May-December Romances when I see supermodels dating janitors and when younger women say, “We have so much in common” I think, “Yeah, his money” which might be sexist, but I’d think the same thing if a 29-year-old gigolo dated a rich woman old enough to star in a remake of The Mummy.
So if I’m being offensive I think I deserve some credit for being offensive to both sexes.
A digression off the Dig-Me Tribe digression
The part about the ballplayer wearing “the latest shades” reminds me that when wrap-around sunglasses became a thing, some pitchers didn’t like it.
Those pitchers thought the wrap-around sunglasses allowed hitters to peek back at the catcher’s signs without moving their heads and know what pitch was on its way which is a big baseball no-no and in the old days would earn the peeking hitter a fastball in the ribs, but these days the pitcher and hitter would seek couples counseling and the psychiatrist would say:
“Bob, Dave here thinks you’re a goddamn, dirty, good-for-nothing cheater…how does that make you feel?”
On the other hand…
Pitchers in general are considered paranoid and if they start getting hit like a rented mule will conclude that it must be because they’re tipping pitches or someone is stealing signs and then it’s the catcher’s job to go to the mound and say:
“Nobody is stealing signs…I’m catching your shit and you just suck today.”
A digression off the wrap-around sunglass digression
When a pitcher and catcher have a meeting on the mound the announcers always speculate what the meeting is about and the speculation is always baseball-related, which is not always accurate. For instance, Jason Kendall told me a story about a Japanese pitcher calling him to the mound and Jason thought:
“This should be interesting…I don’t speak Japanese and he doesn’t speak English.”
But the pitcher had learned some English and when Jason got to the mound, the pitcher pointed to a well-endowed woman sitting behind the dugout and said:
“Look at the boobies!”
So think about that next time you watch a pitcher and catcher have a mound meeting. Bull Durham got it right probably because Ron Shelton – the guy who wrote the screenplay – played minor league ball and knew what the hell he was talking about. Enjoy his very accurate portrayal of a mound meeting:
And now back to politics with some reluctance because baseball stories are way more fun.
In conclusion
So Republicans liked Putin because they thought comparing him to Obama made Obama look bad and they also like that Putin is anti-LGBTI (which I had to look up because I got the “L” the “G” the “B” and the “T” but someone slipped an “I” in there when I wasn’t looking and now it turns out a “Q” has also been added which stands for “Questioning” and when it comes to sex, I could not agree more).
Anyway…
The cartoon is based on the Republicans traditional abhorrence of non-traditional relationships and points out they’ve been willing to climb in bed with America’s enemies as long as it helps them score political points at the same time.
And here’s that article I mentioned earlier:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-03-13/how-putin-infiltrated-republican-party-and-fox-news/100902786
OK, that was a long, strange trip (and, yes, that’s a Grateful Dead reference) to get to the point of the cartoon and if you’re still with me, thanks for hanging in there.
After these last couple of clips I need to watch Bull Durham
More mound conversation stories!