There’s a lot going on in Felberville these days. Some of it may directly affect your lives. Some of it will almost definitely not affect your lives, but I’m going to tell you anyway. My main message here is that change is good, especially if all you have is a $100 bill. So -
(Water) Breaking News - The biggest news is that my sister Susie is knocked up! Yes, Felber fans, there will soon be another, and mother Felber will be able to rebrand herself as “Granny Felber.” The young ‘un’s release date is set for October 31. Yes, that’s right (in deep, scary mcvie preview voice): This Halloween, fear has a new name. And very little hair. We are all, needless to say, pretty excited about this development, and Susie has promised me that regardless of gender she will name the baby “Hector Renaldo Garcia y Vega Felber-Holland.” Well, she hasn’t exactly promised, but I’m working on her. I’ve always wanted to be the uncle of a Columbian drug lord. Is that so wrong?
The New Job - Sadly, I’ll be taking a break from doing “Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me” for the next couple of months. Happily, this is because my new job writing and performing on this fall’s supergigantic smash-hit latenight comedy sensation, Talk Show with Spike Feresten starts Monday. Set you Tivos now, or at least your alarms. This incredibly fun but life-eating job is one of several reasons for…
This Old Blog - Fanatical Apathy as we know it is about to change. I’d been thinking of doing this for a while, so this new telemavision job just tipped the scales. The long and short of it is that we’re not only redesigning, but also I’ve invited a few of the funniest writers in the world to join me here. Yes, that’s right, my little site will soon have several contributers, a new look, and a more varied buffet of subject matter (I’ve instructed our contruibuters to write about “anything that’s happening now,” which leaves them a llittle elbow room).
Initially, there will be only three or so new writers here - I’m not looking to turn this into a Huffington Post (besides, smart pantsuits make me look fat). And you’re going to love our new guys - in fact, it’s pretty likely that your already do (yes, that’s me creating an Air of Mystery! Oooooooooh.).
Why? Or “Why, Adam, why?” The simplest answer is that I think it’ll be fun. After four and a half years (yipe!) of runnng this place by myself, I feel like I could use some company. Also, several of you have mentioned that two or three posts a week is Just Not Enough, and I heartily agree. And I never want to get to the point where I sigh and say to myself “God, I HAVE to post something today…”
Exciting, yes? Not “Incipient Unclehood” exciting, maybe, but pretty damn exciting nonetheless. More details will emerge soon, and if all goes well, the brand-new Fanaitical Apathy will launch sometime this month. So it’ll be pretty well-established by the time Hector is born. [By the way, anyone know where I can buy white linen suits and panama hats in really small sizes?]
Fanny Roborat
34 comments
Old Mother Felber
June 9, 2006 at 6:55 pm
1Ah, at last. Grandmotherlyhood.
I Always wanted to look like Marlene Deitrich.
“Ve einst du Lili Marlene? Ve einst du, Lili Marlene?”
cooper
June 9, 2006 at 6:55 pm
2The Jewish robot tailors in Sleeper seemed to do a pretty good job, as I recall. Maybe not linen suits, but “Corduvroy? You vant corduvroy?”
Congratulations! I suggested to Susie she should scrub the launch date until November 30th, which a particular auspicious day to be born, but I don’t think she’s going for it.
Change is good! “Bring it on”! …or words to that effect! Look, you don’t want to burn out your funny bone.
Bob
June 9, 2006 at 7:48 pm
3Felber, rather than white suits, I really think you should be buying the baby clothing spotlighted on Wait Wait a few weeks ago. Pimp your niece or nephew out at Pimpfants. I’m working on Kristin to let me outfit our kids in “My mommy’s a MILF” t-shirts, but she’s resisting so far
Bob
Julia
June 9, 2006 at 8:29 pm
41) Congratulations, Susie!
2) Congratulations Adam and Mother Felber; I’ve heard that becoming a grandmother is much easier than becoming a mother, and the same holds for uncles as well.
3) “Smart pantsuits make me look fat” - oh, Adam, they do that to just about anyone who’s eaten, say, a month or to prior to dressing. Don’t worry. Everybody is 10 pounds thinner on radio.
4) Okay. You want time off? We’ll deal. We swear. (Well, I do, can’t really speak for the rest.)
Again, congrats to the whole Felber constellation.
Ann
June 9, 2006 at 9:17 pm
5Knocked up? What are we, 13? Nice way to talk about your own sister.
But congratulations anyway! And I hope we like the new bloggers, ’cause you know how mean we can be.
SeattleDan
June 9, 2006 at 9:35 pm
6But I’m afraid of changes.And clowns.
But congrats to Susie ( I have a sister Susie.Coincidence? I think so!).Adam, I’m sure you’ll enjoy unclehood.
Hot Tub Tommy
June 9, 2006 at 11:28 pm
7Just got a call from Field Marshall Argueta - the Snatch and Recovery team just missed Lemuel and friends at the bean field sleeping cabins outside Valdosta. The mattresses were still warm. A thunderstorm hit as they were getting into their trucks and wiped out all the tire tracks & dust clouds in the distance. The trail is cold, so we start all over again from square one. Damn. This guy is another al-Zarqawi. Let’s hope he does end up that way.
Thomas DeLay, Bounty Hunter, Border Patrol Trainee, Lobbyist, Patriot
dave
June 9, 2006 at 11:44 pm
8Yay! Maybe having a nephew and some help with the site will lend you both the time and inspiration to do more cartoons. I love those.
don
June 10, 2006 at 12:20 am
9Congratulations on your incipient avuncularism, Adam.
And congratulations to Susie also (since she refuses to allow comments on her blog so I cannot tell her there).
You will be missed on Wait, Wait (but it will allow some of the others some needed catch-up opportunities).
We’ll just have to wait and see what develops here (but here was a good development from the old Fanatical Apathy Forum, for those of us who have been hanging around that long).
And now I can abandon the convention of the parenthetical addenda (since it was getting tiring to keep track of the structure).
Dale
June 10, 2006 at 2:17 am
10Hey, I just checked out the “Talk Show with Spike Feresten” website and it says that it is an “alternative series” on FOX. What does that mean? Sounds suspiciously like TV-speak for “what we might put on the air if “Survivor MCII: Inside My Pants” and “Cops: When Nonwhite People Go Bad” and “The Hannity-Limbaugh-O’Reilly (Platonic) Love Hour” all flop.” Or is it an “alternative series” like the LA “alternative high schools” for kids who had been expelled from 3 or more regular high schools? (I.e a TV series where you don’t really have to write anything or be on TV and you can smoke pot all day and still get Nielsen ratings.)
PS - Congrats on unclehood. Go ahead and lord it over us poor only children…
Emmarie
June 10, 2006 at 2:35 am
11Speaking of Wait Wait– last week Adam did a post about the taping in Chicago. Why did the version I heard that week have entirely different people on it? I got it through podcast, so it wasn’t a fundraiser. I have been puzzled since, but I didn’t feel like digressing too much from the serious and worrying nature of the last post.
Congrationlations to all, for many reasons. See if you can find some temporary gang tatoos for the baby.
Emmarie
June 10, 2006 at 2:35 am
12By the way, “congrationlations” is just a supercharged version of “congratulations.” Just in case someone who reads that isn’t in the know yet.
cooper
June 10, 2006 at 9:22 am
13Hot Tub Tommy - whoa… That’s harsh even for a God Fearing Christian warrior such as yourself! I like/don’t like (Is that an eigenstate, Adam?) Lemuel myself and, yes it’s true, he hasn’t taken my account numbers for my stash of millions of dollars in siphoned off slush funds, but chill, Bubba. This is a humor blog; no bad karma allowed.
Emmarie, I think the program in question was from the week before last, am I right guys? Funny, funny, funny. Download that one, too! “Congrationlations” - thanks for the update. I tell you this young generation is changing the language so fast, my spellchecker just isn’t keeping up.
Old enough to be your grandfather - cooper
Susie
June 10, 2006 at 10:24 am
14Thanks for the shout out Adam! Me and Hector (or Hectorina) are doing fine. In fact I just felt him/her… call for the executon of a rival fetal drug lord.
Oh and Ann, FYI on my own site a few days ago when I came out of the closet with my beer barrel belly I called myself “knocked up” and when I let one of the tippy top executives at my job know I was pregnant I told him I was “knocked up.”
So I think this reflects on me not being classy, not my bro.
LATER DUDES!
-me
David
June 10, 2006 at 3:15 pm
15And the first comment on the re-invented FA will be: “We know Adam Felber, and you, sir or madam, are not Adam Felber.”
Meanwhile, one more congrats on unclehood. It really is way cool. And grandparenthood trumps all else.
waterfowler
June 10, 2006 at 3:57 pm
16Congratulations Susie and Old Mother Felber.
Coop & David, I knew y’all were a little older, but I think I owe each of you a couple of “yes sir”s and “no sir”s to cover past comments.
cooper
June 10, 2006 at 4:44 pm
17The honorific is accepted, Mr. waterfowler. All future correspondence will no doubt convey the respect and esteem due to one of this advanced age, one would hope.
Emmarie
June 10, 2006 at 5:30 pm
18Cooper, I see. I have that one but I never got around to listening to it.
So I will.
cooper
June 10, 2006 at 6:41 pm
19I was doodling through some websites I had previously bookmarked, but never got around to reading and found this gem from “In These Times”. It takes just a few minutes to read and many of the regulars and lurkers (well, maybe not Mr. waterfowler) may find it to their liking.
http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/cold_turkey/
My favorite line refers to cigarettes as “having a fire at one end and a fool at the other”. I’ll show it to my daughter, though I know I’ll being getting “that look” back from her. This is the fate of parents.
Murray
June 10, 2006 at 7:27 pm
20Well Susie, congratulations, let me know when you want to get a bugger (little trailer that the tike fits, in behind the bike).
Mother Felber, grand parenthood is fabulous. All the fun and none of the work.
Grandchildren are your reward for not having killed your own kids.
Well, lets see hot the new blog works. Hopefully Peter is one of the writers. I really got into his posts way back when you left us for vacation or some excuse.
Landis
June 10, 2006 at 10:35 pm
21My guess is that you can get them at this place.
hedera
June 10, 2006 at 11:31 pm
22This morning on Wait, Wait, one of the gags was about the Democratic Party - always a fertile source - and their five principles, with one principle to be named later. I’ve been searching all over the web and I can’t find any reference to that: I think someone made it up. If it’s real I’d like to do a blog post on it, but I only blog with sources I can cite. Anybody got a lead? Where was this mentioned?
Linkmeister
June 11, 2006 at 2:50 am
23Maybe it was actually The Five Principals, that hot new singing group consisting of Pelosi, Hoyer, Reid, Schumer and Emanuel? I understand that Murtha kid wants to sing too, so Hoyer may have to struggle to keep his slot.
cooper
June 11, 2006 at 1:25 pm
24hedera, try this:
http://www.investors.com/editorial/IBDArticles.asp?artsec=20&artnum=1& issue=20060609
Pretty darn depressing list.
David
June 11, 2006 at 6:54 pm
25Waterfowler,
We come from the same tradition, and I still found myself saying Yes, sir or Thank you, ma’am to my elders until I was in my 50s, and stopped only because once I was obviously no longer young, it tended to emphasize their age, especially for women, but I still catch myself doing it if the person is significantly older than I am. So it’s ok either way, and it is more appealing than some of the other possibilities.
Peace, young ‘un.
hedera
June 11, 2006 at 8:23 pm
26Cooper, thanks for the citation. As you say, depressing; the worst part is, it didn’t sound too bad (except for #6) until he began to expound on the items.
As to “Sir” and “Ma’am” - I still use them. I also refer to groups of people, when speaking to them, as “gentlemen” or “ladies”. What am I supposed to do? Yell, “Hey, sucker!” Call them “dawgs” and “hos”? There’s nothing wrong with courtesy. Waterfowler and I don’t agree on much, but we agree on this.
Landis
June 12, 2006 at 10:50 am
27Linkmeister - Murtha can just be the ’sixth principle to be named later’.
waterfowler
June 12, 2006 at 4:49 pm
28Mr. Cooper, the best line of Kurt’s was that only nut cases wanted to be president.
Adam, I know you’re busy, but the Algore/Chicken Little bit has to be done.
siobhan
June 12, 2006 at 6:40 pm
29Fowler, you’re not going to like what climate change does to migration routes, I guarantee it. (And you really won’t like what happens to breeding grounds.) Hope you have a taste for Mallards.
KatieWise
June 13, 2006 at 12:06 am
30OMG. Has it really been THAT LONG?? It seems like only yesterday that we were visiting the Forum….
I’m putting in a vote for Mo as a contributer! Can I vote more than once?!
Katie (still with ya’ll, but usually really, really, really behind in reading)
Matt
June 13, 2006 at 9:50 pm
31So, Adam, did a lot of Drug Lords graduate from Columbia?
The picky NPR listeners recognize the country as Colombia.
David
June 14, 2006 at 1:57 pm
32Yo, Waterfowler,
“This really is not a political issue. It is a moral issue! Here’s what the Fox News reviewer wrote about the movie: ‘Not to be missed. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a Republican or Democrat, liberal or conservative….your mind will be changed in a nanosecond.’”
Go see the movie, especially since you are obviously a lover of the creation with which we have been blessed; then report back.
Charles
June 15, 2006 at 7:13 am
33You know “variety is the spice of life”, so we dont mind having new bloggers.
……….quote my words, they are for your new job too.
David
June 15, 2006 at 10:21 pm
34Saw a scientist today discounting a human-caused global warming crisis. They forgot to ask him if cigarettes cause lung cancer.
Margaret
June 17, 2006 at 1:51 am
35Oh its better late than never, atlast the long awaited change……….thanx.
……..atleast i was wanting and may be you too.
Paulcarter68
June 20, 2006 at 5:41 am
36Congratulations to Susie and i m sure you ll be elated becoming “Uncle”.
……….and congrats to you too for the new job.
Hope we’ll like the new bloggers, you know how selfish we can be.
Paulcarter68
June 20, 2006 at 5:52 am
37Congrats to Susie and i m sure you ll be elated to be an “uncle”!
……..and congrats to you for the new job!
Hope we like the new bloggers, you know how selfish we can be.