If you live in the Toronto area and own a tuba, I may have found a job opportunity for you. Of course, it’s not without its risks—for all I know, you might end with a citation of some sort, and you might make a few high-powered enemies.

A Craigslist user in Toronto, apparently a representative from some flashmob-type website, would like a tuba player to follow mayor Rob Ford around for a day and toot some jocular tones intended to make fun of his weight—as if nobody had noticed that the good, crack-smoking mayor could stand to shed a few kilograms (that’s what they call “pounds” in Canada). For that service—8 hours of it—you can expect to receive $125. You are expected to bring your own tuba, but a trombone will suffice if absolutely necessary.

French horn players can fuck off, not interested.
 

 
“You must be willing to adhere to the following: wear a gopro camera (provided) to document the ensuing antics” and “wear a shirt with @UnethicalHacks (provided) printed on the back for the entire day.”

“Price for 8 hours: $125.” That comes out to $15.63 an hour. Which is better than minimum wage, but still not great pay. Considering what they are asking, they really should pay at least $500.

For those interested in applying, here is an instructional video on the job requirements, courtesy of The Family Guy:
 

 
Thank you Jess Wood!

 
Seth MacFarlane, creator of “Family Guy,” has donated funds to the Library of Congress so it can acquire the personal papers of astronomer Carl Sagan, library officials announced today. Via Art Beat:

Mr. MacFarlane never owned Sagan’s papers, but he covered the undisclosed costs of donating them to the library. The papers filled more than 800 filing-cabinet drawers and include correspondence with other scientists, drafts of Mr. Sagan’s academic articles, as well as screenplay drafts for the movie “Contact,” which was based on Mr. Sagan’s novel. His grade-school report cards and a drawing he made as a child about the future of space exploration were also included. “All I did was write a check, but it’s something that was, to me, worth every penny,” MacFarlane told The Associated Press by phone from Los Angeles. “He’s a man whose life’s work should be accessible to everybody.”

Mr. MacFarlane said he watched “Cosmos” as a child and read all of Mr. Sagan’s books. “He was an enormous and profound influence in my life,” Mr. MacFarlane said. “He played an essential role — some would say the only role at the time — in bridging the gap between the academic community and the general public.”

MacFarlane is forgetting about Jonathan Miller and Joseph Campbell, but point taken.

Mr. MacFarlane met Mr. Sagan’s widow and collaborator, Ann Druyan, at an event a few years ago that brought together Hollywood screenwriters and directors with scientists. They agreed to collaborate on a follow-up to “Cosmos,” with Mr. MacFarlane serving as producer. Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson will host the series, which is scheduled to begin production this fall.

Neil deGrasse Tyson taking up Carl Sagan’s mantle for a reboot of Cosmos produced by Seth MacFarlane? I’d watch that.

Someone alert reddit!

Speaking of Seth MacFarlane, his feature film debut, Ted, comes out later this week.

Below, an “edited for rednecks” version of Carl Sagan’s classic Cosmos TV miniseries from Family Guy.
 

 
Last night’s wickedly inspired episode of Family Guy viciously took on the Tea Party and trickled-on economics.

No punches were pulled. It’s like Matt Taibbi wrote it or something!

Predictably, it’s also fucking hilarious, but the idea that this was broadcast on FOX adds another level of “heavy meta” to the equation.

The best part is the position that Seth MacFarlane has put Fox News in. They’re almost contractually obliged to be “outraged” by this.

Hannity and O’Reilly are almost certain to weigh in tonight. Should be fun to watch.

The Tea party stuff starts here.
 

 
Part II here.

 
Patrick Meighan is “a husband, a father, a writer on the Fox animated sitcom Family Guy, and a member of the Unitarian Universalist Community Church of Santa Monica.” He also was arrested by the LAPD at the Occupy Los Angele encampment at City Hall. He’s posted the story of what happened when the camp was upended and of his experiences in jail.

His conclusions about the experience are not to be missed:

Finally, at 2:30 the next morning, after twenty-five hours in custody, I was released on bail. But there were at least 200 Occupy LA protestors who couldn’t afford the bail. The LAPD chose to keep those peaceful, non-violent protesters in prison for two full days… the absolute legal maximum that the LAPD is allowed to detain someone on misdemeanor charges.

As a reminder, Antonio Villaraigosa has referred to all of this as “the LAPD’s finest hour.”

So that’s what happened to the 292 women and men were arrested last Wednesday. Now let’s talk about a man who was not arrested last Wednesday. He is former Citigroup CEO Charles Prince. Under Charles Prince, Citigroup was guilty of massive, coordinated securities fraud.

Citigroup spent years intentionally buying up every bad mortgage loan it could find, creating bad securities out of those bad loans and then selling shares in those bad securities to duped investors. And then they sometimes secretly bet *against* their *own* bad securities to make even more money. For one such bad Citigroup security, Citigroup executives were internally calling it, quote, “a collection of dogshit”. To investors, however, they called it, quote, “an attractive investment rigorously selected by an independent investment adviser”.

This is fraud, and it’s a felony, and the Charles Princes of the world spent several years doing it again and again: knowingly writing bad mortgages, and then packaging them into fraudulent securities which they then sold to suckers and then repeating the process. This is a big part of why your property values went up so fast. But then the bubble burst, and that’s why our economy is now shattered for a generation, and it’s also why your home is now underwater. Or at least mine is.

Anyway, if your retirement fund lost a decade’s-worth of gains overnight, this is why.

If your son’s middle school has added furlough days because the school district can’t afford to keep its doors open for a full school year, this is why.

If your daughter has come out of college with a degree only to discover that there are no jobs for her, this is why.

But back to Charles Prince. For his four years of in charge of massive, repeated fraud at Citigroup, he received fifty-three million dollars in salary and also received another ninety-four million dollars in stock holdings. What Charles Prince has *not* received is a pair of zipcuffs. The nerves in his thumb are fine. No cop has thrown Charles Prince into the pavement, face-first. Each and every peaceful, nonviolent Occupy LA protester arrested last week has has spent more time sleeping on a jail floor than every single Charles Prince on Wall Street, combined.

The more I think about that, the madder I get. What does it say about our country that nonviolent protesters are given the bottom of a police boot while those who steal hundreds of billions, do trillions worth of damage to our economy and shatter our social fabric for a generation are not only spared the zipcuffs but showered with rewards?

In any event, believe it or not, I’m really not angry that I got arrested. I chose to get arrested. And I’m not even angry that the mayor and the LAPD decided to give non-violent protestors like me a little extra shiv in jail (although I’m not especially grateful for it either).

I’m just really angry that every single Charles Prince wasn’t in jail with me.

My Occupy LA Arrest, by Patrick Meighan
 

 

 
Via Crooks and Liars

 
Following up from Bradley’s awesome Tom Waits and Bob Dylan post, here we have a Family Guy spoof of the two rock stars along with two of our other favorites, Muhammed Ali and Popeye!  “Why didn’t you play Hurricane?”  Thanks Britt!