Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader doesn’t know why he watched the State of the Union speech last night. He did watch of course. He always watches. Well, almost always watches. There were a few George W Bush SOTU speeches your Maximum Leader missed; mainly because he couldn’t stand to watch the man give a speech. It was painful.

Of course last night’s SOTU speech was painful in a different way. It was painful in that way that a rational person feels when his brain is about to explode due to the contradictions. Sadly this is how most SOTU speeches have been for 20 years. The president stands up there and tells everyone what they want to hear. In last night’s example, President Obama called for lots of new spending as well as spending freezes. He wants to invest and cut the deficit. He wants to spend wisely and eliminate the debt.

By the way… Is “high speed rail” actually code for something else? Your Maximum Leader wanted to think that “high speed rail” was actually code for “riding the love train to Bill Clinton’s office in Harlem” - which is something many women would like to do (at least this is what your Maximum Leader is told).

Anyhooo….

Luckily for your Maximum Leader, his lovely wife (Mrs Villain) came in about 25 minutes into the President’s speech and wanted to talk about other things. This talk went on for about 30 minutes. So your Maximum Leader was able to preserve his brain from damage by focusing on his wife and largely ignoring what was going on at the Capitol.

Your Maximum Leader thought that Paul Ryan’s response was competent. Your Maximum Leader has heard Ryan speak before and last night wasn’t his best work. Sadly, your Maximum Leader missed Michelle Bachmann completely as Mrs Villain needed some help on the computer (which is not code by the way) and he was away long enough to miss the “tea party response.”

All in all your Maximum Leader believes that he’ll have completely forgotten the SOTU by about 2:47pm today.

In other news…

Who’s rooting for the Packers in the big game? Your Maximum Leader is. So are you if you’ve got any sense about you. Sadly it looks like your Maximum Leader will be watching the Super Bowl at the home of some close friends who are Pittsburgh fans. Your Maximum Leader worries about the dynamic in the house during the game. Perhaps he should cancel and stay home… Perhaps he should find new friends….

Di ye knew wha to-day is? It is Robert Burns Day! Huzzah! While your Maximum Leader will not be partaking of haggis sliders; he will have a little of the “water of life” to go along with his poached salmon with dinner. He may even read a poem or two to the family.

Finally… We are on snow watch here in Virginia. The Villainschloss is in the “wintery mix” to 5″ of snow zone. As with all these winter storms, one never knows what will happen until it is happening. Frankly, your Maximum Leader is hoping for rain and nothing more, but with his luck the snow will come and cancel schools and thereby disrupt his harmony.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader was, until about 14 minutes ago, blissfully unaware of the conspiracy that exists in this nation to exterminate a certain minority group. This conspiracy is based in the public schools, churches, Planned Parenthood, the pyschiatric profession and organizations of “European” manufacture.

To elaborate on this conspiracy further your Maximum Leader presents this video (about 14 minutes in length):

Your Maximum Leader is stupified. Just when he starts to forget how insane some people are a video like this one serves to remind him of what craziness people are willing to believe.

Oh yes, one more thing… Your Maximum Leader is glad that Mr. Johnson doesn’t feel the need to subject himself to the oppression of conventional spelling or grammar in the graphics of this video.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minons. Your Maximum Leader thought he’d have a chance to write Christmas well-wishes on ye olde bloge on Christmas Eve. Sadly, he was overcome by events and is only now getting the chance to sit in front of the computer to type out a post.

Your Maximum Leader hopes that you all had a great Christmas. It was a good Christmas at the Villainschloss. Your Maximum Leader was surrounded by family (his own, his parents, his in-laws and his sister’s family). We feasted on roast beast and yorkshire pudding. We had a wide assortment of pies. A great time was had by all.

In the bad news department, Christmas dinner was the first meal that your Maximum Leader prepared in his remodeled kitchen. It did not go off without incident. He did burn the broiled potatoes. (Some of them actually - not the whole batch. His saintly mother-in-law was able to cut of the bad parts on the burnt potatoes.) He also partially burned the second yorkshire pudding. (Again, not badly. But we had fewer crispy pieces as some was stuck to the pan.) The lesson here is that his new oven works better than his old one and he’ll have to watch things a little more closely until he figures out the peculiarities of his new oven.

Before Christmas your Maximum Leader went out to the locale cinema and saw “True Grit.” By happenstance, Turner Classic Movies showed the John Wayne “True Grit” a few days earlier. The Wayne version of the film didn’t stand up as well to a viewing as your Maximum Leader thought it would. He remembers it more fondly than it might deserve. The acting seemed a little forced in the Wayne version and your Maximum Leader got constantly annoyed by Kim Darby (who played Mattie Ross to John Wayne’s Rooster Cogburn). On the other hand, the Coen Brothers did a great job on their version of the film. Yes, it was not ironic in any way (like most Coen Brothers works), but it was an adaptation of a great book. Both films have a lot to commend them. Your Maximum Leader, if forced to choose, would likely choose the Coen Brothers’ adaptation over the John Wayne vehicle. (Let’s face it, True Grit wasn’t Wayne’s finest role, it was the one they decided to give him the Oscar for since they didn’t yet have “lifetime achievement” awards.) Frankly, both films are a great way to pass a few hours.

Lest you think you’ve escaped a mention of Venice at Christmas, here is the famous porphyry of the Four Tetrarchs found on the side of St. Mark’s in Venice:

And in keeping with his own tradition, here is “The Adoration” by El Greco:

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader hasn’t blogged much recently due to a chronic case of TV viewing. Of course when you have a new Panasonic Viera 54 inch Plasma TV you may want to spend your time watching it. If you want to know your Maximum Leader’s thoughts on his new TV here they come: this TV is awesome. Yup. This TV is completely awesome.

FYI… The first film he watched on his new TV, on BlueRay, in true 1080p HD was Zombieland.

Well my minions…

Your Maximum Leader has been completely infected by the bug again. The Venice bug. It has been in the forefront of his mind quite a bit over the past few weeks. He doesn’t recall if there was a particular trigger for the bug, but it is all-consuming.

For a city to which your Maximum Leader has never traveled Venice holds a strange manic fixation for him. He reads about Venice, he thinks about what he’ll do in Venice, he thinks about the future and past of Venice. This year he actually started worrying that when he finally does get to Venice that he’ll hate it or find something to dislike about it. But even those thoughts can’t keep him from thinking about visiting La Serenissima. He worries that Venice’s problems will ruin the image of the city he has in his mind.

Venice has so many problems and so few viable solutions to any of them. The first problem is, well, the water. As your Maximum Leader has highlighted on this blog many times (and he’ll do so again now), the acqua alta (or high water) is affecting the city more and more frequently and is getting higher and higher with each passing year. The high water yesterday was reportedly over a meter deep in St. Mark’s square.

Another problem is the over-commericalization of Venice. People (Venitians and outsiders) think that the city is becoming “Veniceland” and ceasing to be a city. They contend that the 20 million tourists that flood the city by day in the warm weather months are driving out reasonably priced apartments, grocers, and many of the people and businesses that make a city a city. The population of Venice has declined to between 50,000-60,000 (from a late 1950s popluation of nearly 130,000). Without some way of keeping prices down in the city more citizens will leave and eventually Venice could become a tourist city with the workers coming in by train or boat from their homes on terra firma and leaving after the tourists in the evening.

In the over-commericalization vein, the costs of keeping up the city continue to skyrocket. Many people are complaining about how the city is auctioning off advertising space on scaffolding around historic buildings in Venice (including this ghastly ad for Coke - a product your Maximum Leader completely endorses - on the side of the Doge’s Palace). Sadly, your Maximum Leader isn’t sure that there are many other choices for preserving the city. With a dwindling tax-base you have to sell the assests you can to raise money to preserve the landmarks that draw in the tourists. The mayor of Venice, Giorgio Orsoni, earlier this year proposed a tax on tourists. The proposal was that every tourist who enters the city, but does not spend the night in the city, should pay a 10 Euro tax. The city would then spend the tax on keeping up the city buildings and services. Frankly, your Maximum Leader is all for this proposal. 10 Euros a person and 20 million tourists. Let’s say that 2 million of those tourists spend the night (which seems a little high, but he’s going with it anyway) that is still 180 million Euros in revenue gained. That seems like a reasonable visitation tax with a worthwhile purpose.

But even with all the talk of overcommericalization, sinking and crowds of tourists, your Maximum Leader feels the city is pulling at his soul. The city calls him to visit. He hopes that his visit will be like the one he recently read about on-line in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (although the piece is orginally from the New York Times - your Maximum Leader doesn’t read the NY Times as a matter of policy, unless he is in New York City). In the piece Rachel Donadio relates her first visit to Venice in many years. It is a great travel piece that your Maximum Leader will commend to you. Here is a taste:

I HADN’T been back to Venice in years when I found myself there on assignment. It was November; the city’s scattered trees had begun to turn brown. The light, as always, was beyond compare and there was a watery chill in the air. I loved it immediately.

Or rather, I remembered how much I loved it. Italy can do strange things to your perspective. Memories of a place become more real than the place itself. I had lived for years with the Venice of my recollections — traveling there at 19, drinking peach iced tea in the July heat, discovering Giorgione — and then last November I was back. I was older, so was Venice.

The visit whetted my appetite, and not long afterward I returned one freezing January weekend, armed with several sweaters, boots and a well-worn copy of “Watermark,” Joseph Brodsky’s marvelous prose poem about Venice in winter, which would be my guide. It is an emotional guidebook more than a practical one, but, I would argue, just as reliable. In Venice, maps fail. As everyone knows, to be in that floating city is to be forever lost and disoriented, as if in a labyrinth.

On that November foray, I had listened to a group of American college students talking as they wandered around near the Rialto Bridge. “I don’t mind if we’re, like, lost all day,” one told his friends. “Dude,” another replied, “I don’t think we have a choice.”

Goethe could not have put it better. Venice, as he famously wrote, can be compared only to itself. So many wonderful writers have captured Venice, from Goethe to Henry James to Evelyn Waugh, that it is all the more remarkable that in 1992 Brodsky, in “Watermark,” managed to create a truly original piece of writing about this cliché-worn city.

Your Maximum Leader read “Watermark” last Christmas. It is one of the most lyrical short books he’s ever read. Brodsky could really turn a phrase and capture a moment in poetic prose. If you can, pick up a copy and read it. It will take you a short afternoon (or a long one if you savor the words).

Anyhoo… Venice is on your Maximum Leader’s mind.

You know what other Italian thing is on your Maximum Leader’s mind? No? Well let him tell you. Mara Carfagna. Yes, the beautiful and talented Minister for Equal Opportunity in the Berlusconi government. Your Maximum Leader has read over the past year that Minister Carfagna had gotten a lot of press for trying to outlaw street prostitution and provide more protection for homosexuals and victims of rape. Right around Thanksgiving in the US your Maximum Leader read that Mara Carfagna (Bella Mara as the Italian papers seem to call her) was going to resign from her position. Your Maximum Leader had read about the ongoing garbage collector strike in Naples and the growing mountains of refuse in the city; but now that crisis had real impact to him. Carfagna was going to resign over the government’s inability to resolve that situation. Your Maximum Leader was going to lament that the world’s most beautiful government minister was going to resign over garbage. Apparently, and luckily for all involved, Carfagna and Berlusconi must have worked something out because she is going to stay on (for a while at least). If you would like a little news analysis on Mara Carfagna here is a nice piece in Spiegel International called: Neither Saints Nor Whores.

Well, that is about all the Italian stuff brewing around in your Maximum Leader’s brain right now. He’ll leave the blog now and check out some college football. Today he’s rooting for the USC Gamecocks to put the smackdown on Auburn (mainly because he wants to see TCU try for the National Championship) and the Virginia Tech Hokies in the ACC championship.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader and his family were speaking at the table the other night. Conversation turned to the marriage of Prince William (of Wales) to Catherine Middleton. Neither of your Maximum Leader’s daughters seemed to be terribly interested in marrying into royalty, but as the conversation flowed we started to discuss precedence. Namely who follows whom or is seated next to whom at important state functions. While realizing that the wedding of William & Kate is not going to be a state function, there will be lots of important personages who will have to be seated and that there must be some official order to everything.

Your Maximum Leader, who knows a little bit about protoccol, speculated that royals (or other heads of state) would be given precedence according to the age of their nation and royal line. So he speculated that the Emperor of Japan would naturally be first in terms of precedence. Emperor Akihito is the latest of a long (and to your Maximum Leader’s knowledge largely unbroken) line of succession. Your Maximum Leader further speculated that by that standard if you are mixing royals and other heads of state you would likely put the Pope second.

Well… A quick googling of this item shows just how wrong your Maximum Leader was. Assuming that Wikipedia is correct, precedence is given according to longevity as head of state. Thus the King of Thailand is first in order of precedence and Queen Elizabeth of Great Britain (etc. etc.) is second. (Emperor Akihito looks to be 19th. Right behind Robert Mugabe! NB to Mrs P - is that Ghoul Pool still going? Has anyone cashed out yet?)

So, tonight at the dinner table your Maximum Leader will have to set the record straight with his family on precedence.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader tweeted the other day “Does liking the music of Khachaturian make me a Communist?” This was brought about by an early morning errand.

You see…

Your Maximum Leader was in the Villainmobile running around town early on Saturday morning. He had a lot of stuff to do starting at 9am; so he was out early to get some cash and a few sundries that would make the day better. While driving he heard a piece of music on the radio (Classical WETA in our Nation’s Capital). The piece was instantly familiar. But at the same time your Maximum Leader couldn’t place where he’d heard it before. The announcer kindly added that the piece was the Adagio of Spartacus by Aram Khachaturian. Your Maximum Leader pulled over, texted the title to his wife and then made a follow-up call to make sure she didn’t delete the text.

All day your Maximum Leader heard the tune in his head. He hummed it. He whistled it. And all the while he couldn’t place where he’d ever heard the peice before. He is not a huge Khachaturian fan. He is not a fan of ballet. (Indeed your Maximum Leader finds that the loves lots of the music of ballet, but finds the actual dancing to be technically amazing and unable to hold his attention.) He couldn’t place the piece. In case you are wondering about the piece here it is:

Your Maximum Leader embedded the ballet rather than another clip that only showed Aram Khachaturian’s face for the whole 9 minutes. He did this for those of you who like ballet. And also ole Aram isn’t all that handsome a fellow…

Anyhoo…

Your Maximum Leader found the peice on iTunes and bought it. He’s listened to it 15 times since Saturday. (Thanks iTunes play count!) All the while he’s not been able to place where he’s heard it before.

About 20 minutes ago your Maximum Leader suddenly remembered, he lives in the age of the interwebs. Surely the Google must know something about this piece. And as certainly as night follows day, and May flowers follow April showers the Google was a help. It turns out that this piece has been in many movies. The one that your Maximum Leader immediately recognized was “The Hudsucker Proxy.” (NB: your Maximum Leader loves the Hudsucker Proxy.) Now his mind is no longer agitated by not knowing where he’s heard this little ditty before.

Of course, none of this answers the question of are you a Communist if you like Khachaturian?

Probably not… But one should wonder…

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader’s iPod dished out an REM song he’d not heard in forever, but one he just loves. It is “Photograph.” (Written by REM and Natalie Merchant.)

Sadly, your Maximum Leader can’t find a non-rights protected copy of it anywhere to post.

It is a wonderful song. Take his word for it.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader has discussed “totalitarian gothic” in the past here on this site. The first time was back in 2006, and again earlier this year in reference to the Martin Luther King Memorial.

On the balance your Maximum Leader has a soft spot in his heart for totalitarian gothic. In the right situation he likes it… In this stream of thought… Your Maximum Leader has often thought that if he was going to build a huge skyscraper in a dense urban area he might build something similar to the Moscow State University or the Warsaw Palace of Culture.

Speaking of the Warsaw Palace of Culture, it turns 55 this year.

Your Maximum Leader didn’t realize that the Warsaw Palace of Culture was still up. He sort of figured that it was torn down after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Surprisingly it was not, in fact now it is a protected historic site. Your Maximum Leader can’t speak to the feelings of Poles about the building. He suspects that the population is split on the building (as the linked article suggests). Your Maximum Leader knows that if he was oppressed by a foreign power for 50 years he’d be disinclined to want to preserve such a huge symbol of that oppression. As an outside observer it seems like a nice building (with a high degree of utility) to keep around…

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader is something of a sucker for the light news in newspapers. This isn’t to say that he likes the myriad “fluff” pieces you see on TV news (stuff like surfing dogs, and squirrels that “sing” or anything like that), he doesn’t like those pieces on TV. But you find cool articles in newspapers that are worth reading and are light compared to straight news.

For your reading pleasure in the Washington Post: ‘Casablanca Rick’s Bar of Kabul’ serves up its last drink.

Money quote: “All non-muslims smell like this.”

Go thee and read.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader recently received an email from a close friend. The contained a link to a You Tube video and the comment “…this provides an argument why Germans should not be allowed to play rock and roll… EVER.
Note that this is a Queen cover tune.

Your Maximum Leader clicked through on the link and got this:

Now, first off your Maximum Leader should apologize to any of you who did watch the video. Sorry about that…

That is some awful shit. Your Maximum Leader didn’t think that Germans were allowed to wear brownshirts and boots like that any more… He is also glad he doesn’t speak any German (mostly out of fear of what the lyrics might actually say). Your Maximum Leader’s friend says it is a Queen cover. Your Maximum Leader admits that he can’t place the Queen song at all. He should try and google a Queen song with the lyric “Get me a light beer!”

Of course, for all your Maximum Leader knows, the singer might be saying “Get me a light beer or I’ll remilitarize the Rhineland! Watch your back Czech Republic!”

What ever happened to the happy anti-war sentiment of Nena and 99 Luftballons?

Oh Nena… Your Maximum Leader hopes you’ve shaved your pits at some point between 1984 and today…

(NB to readers: Your Maximum Leader remembers, back in the day, that he thought that Nena was rather attractive. Then one day on MTV he saw a live performance of 99 Luftballons. At first he was pretty excited because Nena was wearing some sort of torn up sleeveless white t-shirt on what appeared to be a humid day. (Wink Wink Nudge Nudge) He thought he might get to see a little side boob or something. Sadly, what he did get was an eyeful of armpit hair that he’ll never be able to un-see. After that day, your Maximum Leader never thought Nena was that attractive. Martha Quinn however…)

Anyhoo… Note to our German friends… Please no more…

Should your Maximum Leader be a little ashamed for invoking the name of Leni Riefenstahl in this post? She was an innovative filmmaker after all… And there was nothing innovative in that video…

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader is returned from a few days down in beautiful Key West. You want to know something? Your Maximum Leader might be the only normal person to go to Key West for 4 days, experience beautiful sunny 80 degree weather; and return home just as pasty and fish-belly white as he left.

Your Maximum Leader might recount more of his trip in a later post. Let us give a quick summary for you if you are so inclinded…

High points: friends’ wedding, “Little White House” visit, Hemmingway house visit, eating fish caught by friends at Eat it Raw (fish was cooked), drinking so many cuba libres that your Maximum Leader figured he might just go and try to libre the island of Cuba.

(NB to all: Your Maximum Leader takes his cuba libres in his own form. He likes white rum, coke, splash of lime juice, crushed lime wedge, and a float of 151 proof rum. He found that the bartenders at Eat It Raw thought his variation on the popular drink was particularly good.)

Low points: listening to a mediocre piano bar singer at hotel for longer than he wanted, waking up early due to cruise ship horns sounding at dawn, blister on heel from shoes

Regrets: not going deep sea fishing when friends did go with Captain Keith on the Lucky Strike.

There might be a photo of your Maximum Leader and a more detailed post coming… Or not…

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader has had a shortage of quality blog time for you all. This situation isn’t going to change over the next few days. He admits that he could have blogged some last night, but he got distracted by the Akira Kurosawa film extravaganza on TMC last night. (BTW, Happy Birthday Kurosawa-san. You would have been 100 years old yesterday.) After putting his villainous offspring to bed he spied “Rashomon” on the tv. Next thing you know, the “Seven Samurai” was on. Then your Maximum Leader fell asleep. He’s such a wuss that way.

What to blog? What to blog?

Well… First of he should congratulate the President, but most of all Speaker Pelosi for getting the damned health care bill passed. It was tremendous work on their parts. Your Maximum Leader gives most of the credit to the Speaker who must have used every bit of parliamentary/political/personal knowledge she knew to twist all the arms to make the deal happen. Your Maximum Leader wasn’t sure that she would pull it off. He wasn’t sure that is until she saw Steny Hoyer and the Speaker announce a vote would be held on Sunday. Once they actually gave a day for the vote and were adamant that it would happen your Maximum Leader knew they had the votes. So… Congrats to them. It was a tough slog, but they got the job done.

Is your Maximum Leader happy about the bill? Of course not. It sucks. But you have to give credit where it is due. And it is due in this case.

So what next? Well… One hopes that the Republicans can run an effective campaign this year and take the House or Senate back and work on serious modification of the bill. Your Maximum Leader thinks Fishersville Mike is right on with a slogan of “Change - the right kind this time.” Why does your Maximum Leader say serious modification and not outright repeal? Let’s be honest. Even after a few months there is inertia that sets in on any legislation. There isn’t going to be an outright repeal. Major modifications is the best course. It is the way the system works. Why did you think they were pushing so hard to pass something? Once it gets on the books it is there… Some portions of the law just enacted will remain no matter how hard one tries to remove them.

Ah well… One hopes that Republicans (for lack of a better alternative) can get their acts together and run a tight campaign and put themselves into a position where they actually have some institutional power in Congress…

Did you Wagnerians out there see that Wolfgang Wagner died this week? The grandson of Richard Wagner and longtime Bayreuth Festival director passed away at age 90. His daughter (and teutonic hottie) Katharina Wagner is currently the festival director.

Your Maximum Leader may, or may not, post again this week. He is off to Key West, Florida for a few days of sun, fun, and marriage. A good friend of his is getting married in Key West on Friday night. It should be fun. It has been a long time since your Maximum Leader was last in Key West. If you have any suggestions of things for him to see or do, leave a comment. (No need to comment that he should leer at drunken spring-break co-eds. Please accept that as read…)

This good friend getting married is the owner of Key West Key Lime pies. If you want to get yourself get best key lime pie EVAH (EVAH!!!) feel free to clicky on the linky and buy…

Later gators… Perhaps your Maximum Leader will get some sun…

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader, although having no Irish ancestry, does enjoy partaking in a little corned beef & cabbage and Guinness beer on St. Patrick’s day. Yesterday evening he found himself singing along to the refrain of this song (which was playing on his iPod)…

While your Maximum Leader greatly enjoyed himself, his family was not as impressed with the singer or the song.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader realized that some of you might not want to go and name your own price to download any of the lovely and talented Lola Astanova’s music. So he thought he might entice you with a sample of her playing from her You Tube channel…

Here you go, clicky here to hear and see Lola Astanova playing the 3rd movement of Rachmaninoff’s Sonata #2.

Or you can clicky here to visit her You Tube channel and choose a video for yourself.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader debated last year about dropping the dreamy Jennifer Love Hewitt from the premier position at the top of the list of objects of his platonic affections. He toyed with dropping JLH in favor of Lola Astanova.

Well… Recently your Maximum Leader has decided to just make the break… JLH is still sorta dreamy, but she is just desperate and weird. She bedazzels her vay-jay-jay. (Ewwww.) And the way she seems to talk about dating and relationships makes your Maximum Leader think that JLH is Jennifer Aniston lite.

So… Your Maximum Leader proudly announces that the object of his platonic affections is the lovely and very (VERY) talented Lola Astanova.

Wanna learn more about the lovely Lola? How about checking out a nice peice on her in the Wall Street Journal?

If you really want a taste of why your Maximum Leader is drawn to Miss Astanova, go visit her website and download one of the pieces from her “Debut” album. You’ll not be disappointed. Your Maximum Leader gladly paid full price for it on iTunes…

Carry on.