Was President Lyndon B. Johnson Just a Time-traveling, Alternate-reality Racist Rick Sanchez?

On this gray, stormy, Boston October, Saturday morning, I engaged one of our favorite pastimes -- tumbling down the internet rabbit hole. Eventually, it brought me towards 'ole Lyndon B. Johnson, former Vice President to John F. Kennedy who, upon JFK's assassination in 1963, succeeded the throne to President of the United States. LBJ is particularly hailed by his fellow Democrats for his 'Great Society' reforms, where,

... the main goal was elimination of poverty and racial injustice... [and] in scope and sweep resembled the New Deal domestic agenda of Franklin D. Roosevelt.

There are some, errr, lesser known facts about him, as well, though. As it turns out, he was quite the character. Self-absorbed egomaniac, exhibitionist, known machiavellian for getting policy through congress (Frank Underwood from House of Cards was primarily "two scoops of LBJ with a dash of Richard III and a pinch of Hannibal Lecter"), and mid-sentence burps all give LBJ a certain je ne sais quoi that even Rick Sanchez, himself, might envy...

"Ladybird--I mean, Morty--everything in life is about sex, Morty -- EXCEPT SEX. 
Sex is about POWER, Morty!!!" - Frank Underwood/LBJ/Rick Sanchez

Rick Sanchez, is that you?

I came across this wonderfully, appropriately animated video of an audio recording where LBJ is on the phone in the oval office of the White House ordering some tailored pants. This is where I found the rabbit hole and started peering into it. Now, it's clear this guy knows how he likes his pants and throws around measurements like its nobody's business, but there's a segment of the video, from about 1:11 to 1:51 that really stood out...

The glorious transcript of this segment, below:

The Apple iPhone's 'Notch' Abomination is Spreading and There is Not a Goddamned Thing you can Do About It

When I first saw 'The Notch', its barbarism felt like a cheese-grater against my brain. I couldn't take it. It was a total, fucking eyesore. I found peace in the fact that it was an 'Apple iPhone thing' at the time, and I was an avid Android user. I'd cast aside the Cult of Apple a decade or so ago, and took solace in the idea that the despicable nonsense of 'The Notch' would be rejected and cast aside by civilized society, obviously. My devices would be safe.

I would be safe.

... or maybe not.

It didn't last. It's coming to more and more devices. With the last Android update on my beloved Pixel 2 XL, I noticed a new setting, buried deep -- hidden away, like a monstrous, threatening thing that was watching, waiting, to crawl out from its abyss and pull all back into oblivion with it. This setting added a software 'Notch' into my screen, likely for devs to design and program their apps around. I was aghast at what this implied for the future of my Android devices and I felt like huddling in the corner, wrapped up into a fetal position, rocking back and forth, sobbing as this abomination, my oppressor, beat me -- nonstop. Would the beatings end? Could they end?

No. The beatings will continue -- until morale improves.

A Meta Review: Ubisoft's New 'Far Cry 5' has the Ideologues All Bent Out of Shape... AnD tHaT's A gOoD tHiNg

Originally, I wasn't very interested in picking up Far Cry 5, the latest entry in a series of formularized games going back to 2004 -- but the more I read about and saw more of its gameplay a couple of weeks leading up to its release, the more excited about it I became. The Montanan setting was much 'closer to home' than past installments, the cult concept was intriguing, the graphics looked gorgeous, the music highly thematic, and the gunplay sweet. The addition of co-op in its beautiful and chaotic open world of Americana was all just too much to pass up, this time around.

Pre-orders were placed.


First, The Actual Game

Allusions to 'The Last Supper', anyone?

On the politics (or mostly lack-thereof) within Far Cry 5 -- they had absolutely zilch, zero, nada to do with my initial excitement, subsequent purchase and ongoing enjoyment of this game. Far Cry 5 feels like The Dukes of Hazard taking on some equally cartoonish cult, and, ultimately, if I’m playing a Far Cry game, I’m not doing it for deep political commentary, regardless of the setting. I'm doing it to have fun in amazingly rendered open worlds and with the characters that dwell there, with great voice-acting, script, and well-executed facial and other animation mo-cap. I expect solid gameplay and combat with many ways to approach varying, highly dynamic situations within the chaos-engine that smashes, head-first, into what would otherwise be considered a paradise on earth.

At the end of the day, you and your buds are going to be sending flaming mountain lions to ravage a bunch of goonish, cult-obsessed, drug-addled hillbillies. Or maybe you'll take out psychopathic cultists with an M60 machine gun mounted on a flame-painted muscle car. Or maybe you'll whack them upside the head with a barbed-wire, nail-studded bat as you whip by in a pickup truck. Or maybe you'll raid doomsday prepper stashes. Or maybe you'll just enjoy the scenery. Or maybe you and your friend will do some fishing in order to feed your diabetic pet grizzly bear, 'Cheeseburger'. Whatever floats your boat, man (like, literally, you can go fishing on your boat).