Patty Mayonnaise Best Abstain: Doug Johnson, Ignoble

The above image is taken straight from Mother Jones, a fine lefty publication, and it's from an article about one truly ignoble Johnson. A man sullying the surname by being a lobbyist against legal abortions.

First, it's contemptible he took the Johnson surname into the lobbyist profession. Lobbying, as I understand it, is essentially getting paid handsomely for being friends with influential people and being able to be a quality bullshitter. While bullshitting is an admirable trait for a Johnson to have, professional lobbying and all the seedy, disreputable, behind-closed-doors pressure, lying, cheating and handjobbing is not a worthy profession for a Johnson. It's ugly. If you want to affect change, do so without needing to check part of your belief structure in the coat room in order to get stuff done.

Second, and most importantly, being against legal abortion is a narrow minded and doesn't achieve what that group of people think they want. Being intentionally narrow in thought and club footed in pursuit of the progress you want is not Johnson. Therefore, Doug, you are ignoble. Give up your surname.

Okay, let's explain that second point some. People like Doug and the people he represents want to stop abortion for the obvious reasons. So, they're trying to make it illegal. On it's face, that does sound reasonable, right? They don't like it, make it illegal, therefore, it won't happen anymore. Just like with speeding. Drugs. Murder. You know, those things don't exist anymore because they're illegal.

I know this comparison isn't fully apt but essentially the idea that by somehow banning something will cease it from ever happening again is ludicrous. If that whole side of the abortion argument would just realize that banning it won't stop it, that maybe they would focus all that money, energy, sweat and pictures of dead babies in things that would maybe create an environment where people would not want abortions through a stronger, supportive and proactive social safety net. Shit, that can even be faith based for all I care, but the argument over abortion needs to move to preventing it from needing to exist instead of just outright banning it and thinking that someone that solves any problem.

So, that's why Doug is an ignoble Johnson. He doesn't see the whole field. He doesn't attack root causes or use all that influence and money to affect positive, enduring change. He's squandering it, another thing Johnsons should never, ever do. We don't squander (if we can help it). Instead, he's prolonging and mining that divisive split between political parties for maybe his own benefit, but surely not to achieve what you think he and his funders are actually after.

Trade in your surname, Doug. And your Beets t-shirt. And your friend with the blue complexion.

Johnsodarity!

A Noble Gus

The above man is Clark Johnson, a noble Johnson indeed.

Why?

Oh, come on. You don't recognize the above picture? You don't realize what show this is from? Are you honestly going to make me tell you? (sigh)

Once upon a time there was a television series called The Wire. Not to overstate this, it is the greatest television series of all time. Don't give me any crap about The Sopranos, Six Feet Under, Dexter, I Love Lucy, The Price Is Right or anything. Television peaked with The Wire.

The Wire is a long form show, meaning to me that the weekly episodes did not neatly tie a bow on the events of the show. You gotta hang in there for all 15 to 10 weeks of the show to get to the bottom of it. A weekly murder was not solved due to a bucket of semen and BILLIONS of dollars spent on outrageous police supplies. Honestly, all that CSI/Bones shit? Do you have any idea what your precious tax rates would be if your police department actually had that whiz bang computer shit? I don't know, but more. A lot more, I'm sure.

The Wire traded in a realistic fictional world. A beautifully flawed collapsing realistic world that leaves nothing varnished. It has that great 1970s film appeal where the world just feels real, lived in and not so clean and perfect like all other TV programs.

And The Wire is mostly about how all aspects of our society are failing us, why they are failing us, and how they are all basically corrupt while failing us. Yeah, let's see All in the Family make that sad shit compelling.

And it is compelling. Every character feels real and born out of this sad crumbling never-ending world.

Anyway, this above man, Clark Johnson, plays a character in the final season named Gus. Gus is the an editor of the Baltimore Sun. And if there is any institution that is absolutely crucial to our existence as a society that is also monumentally failing at its duty it is newspapers, or the mainstream press. Gus is an affable decent man who wants to do the right thing (which in his case would be exposing a lying, cheating golden boy reporter) but is torn because he loves the paper and to expose what he loves, he has to bring it down (oh, Christ, the metaphoric possibilities abound!). However, ultimately, he fails to do what's right, while trying to do what's right the "right" way, or using the structure of the system in place to hopefully bring about the appropriate changes. He is then punished, his role in the paper diminished, but he's he is even a greater failure actually because not only did he fail, but he remained at this paper that will perpetuate the lie. He recognized the faults, the lying, the deceit - tried to fix it, failed - and then said fuck it, took his punishment and rolled up his idealism and went back to work quietly...all the while keeping Gus this absolutely likable, gregarious, brilliant dude, so you can easily miss exactly how much of a failure Gus really is. It's fucking brilliant; he's fucking brilliant.

I'm talking about a television show, not some novel. And I'm talking about on 10 episodes worth of a TV show, too. That's how good and deep The Wire remains.

Clark also directed four episodes of the show, including the very first show and also the final episode. Two very important parts of a show's lifetime.

All of that makes Clark a noble Johnson. He raises the esteem of all Johnsons by being an integral part of the success and complexity of The Wire.

You make me proud to share a surname with you.

Johnsodarity!

Grandmama, The Noble

What? You don't remember Grandmama? He was in Family Matters (though that link takes you to an NBA commercial that uses that Family Matters footage).

I know it's kind of a strange way to begin the listing of Noble Johnsons. Surely there is some great Johnson out there who has cured some kind of disease, performed some miracle of journalism, saved some lives. And there are. Those Johnsons exist, but for right now, let's focus a moment on why Larry Johnson is a noble Johnson.

First, there's the crossdressing alter-ego used to sell men's athletic shoes. Say that again out loud. Cross dressing alter-ego used to sell shoes. And he's a professional athlete no less. Now cross dressing for comedy or commerce isn't exactly a big deal. You got Flip Wilson, the Pythons, Dame Edna, Eddie Izzard, Devine. Joe Namath wore panty hose, so cross dressing even for athletes wasn't so bizarre by the time Larry strapped on the dress. However, for whatever reason, Larry captivated America for that little bit of time where he was on top.

And let us not forget that Larry also signed the richest contract in NBA history at the time, a 12 year, 84 million dollar deal.

Plus, he did so while wearing a teal uniform, which is quite a feat. What the hell was up with all the teal for teams in the 90s? Every decade has got to have its color mistake, I suppose. 80s had neon-colored stuff. 90s had teal. The 20-aughts had red...

Finally, he made up half of the probably the most dominant two-some in the original NBA Jam game. Seriously, there was no better than the Larry/Alonzo Mourning combo.

But, here's what makes Larry among the noble Johnsons. He was a great man, all over TV wearing women's clothing, selling sneakers, signing the richest contracts around, and now? Where is Larry Johnson?

Precisely.

Johnsons know when to shine, and when to leave the stage. When we are on top, we by God thrive. However, we are not attention whores. We are not desperate to stay relevant. We do not busy ourselves with ex-athlete drama like, say, shooting our chauffeur with a shotgun. We don't desperately try to hang around the sports spotlight by becoming an irritating announcer (I'm looking at you, Rick Sutcliffe.)

Johnsons say thank you. We appreciate our time. We will give you a good show to the best of our ability. But our time is our time until it is no longer our time and then we leave the stage.

So, Larry, unless I'm missing some glaring character flaw or some other embarrassing thing that undoes everything I've just said, Larry, you sir are a noble Johnson. Thank you for serving our surname well.

Johnsodarity!

Ron Johnson: The Ignoble

Welcome.

The above leering vacant-eyed man is a US Senator from the State of Wisconsin. His name first name is Ron and due to powers currently beyond my control his surname is Johnson.

I know that I should do a positive post first. To build up instead of tear down, but this above individual inspired this journey to help reclaim the Johnson name and I need to get this out of my system. See, he is everything that's wrong with American politics currently. Without a doubt, he is the embodiment of how absolutely everything went wrong. Ron, therefore, is an ignoble Johnson. He shames all Johnsons. No Johnson should ever, EVER, represent the complete destruction of American politics. We can get impeached or maybe even become embroiled in an unjust war, but we shall never, NEVER stand as the perfect symbol of everything that's wrong with American politics.

The list is quite impressive on how he stacks up to be the exact example of why everything sucks politically in this country.

First, he's an extremely wealthy business owner who ran a "folksy" common person kind of campaign as a political outsider. Never mind that he used $9 million of his personal dollars to fund this folksy common, I'm just a concerned family man from Wisconsin campaign. By the way, if you watch that video, I have great problems with this fat son and that creepy "hot stuff" eyebrow raise his gives his sister at the end of the commercial. And, yes, I am allowed to call him fat being formerly very, very fat myself...which brings me to another complaint, you can tell they tried to minimize his son's fatness by how they positioned him in the seat, angling his body forward like that to disguise the belly. I know that trick. If you're proud of your family, show them as they are, gut rolls and all, otherwise, don't put them on the TV. Okay, back to this, Ron also benefited greatly from outside of the state moneyed interests who poured in millions of dollars to fund him. So you know, just a typical family man ashamed of his fat son and a folksy common millionaire with billionaire connections to boot.

He's also an Ayn Rand disciple who believes that the class of people like him, the suppliers I believe they're called in Rand speak, are a better class of person that working folk. He said as much during a debate with Feingold. However, it was not broadcast state wide. I watched it online through some Green Bay television station's website, I think. Might have been a smaller city than that, actually. I wish I could remember more details about it, but I can't right now. So he's an uppity, elitist millionaire with billionaire connections...you know, folksy. Down home even. Your neighbor, perhaps. The one just over the hedge maze past the garden of statues from Antiquity that we all have.

He's a tea party guy as well, which I think is in and of itself an indictment that he is representative of all that is wrong in politics. Never has a group been so militantly against their own good or misunderstood their problems with such ferocity. But tea party policies, their mad love for privatization and zero regulation, does benefit people like Ron the millionaire.

And, lest we forget, he, the millionaire had employees that need the state insurance program for the poor called BadgerCare because he compensated them poorly.

Ron is also a corporate tax cheat. In that he's not doing anything illegal, but still wrong. Kind of like how it's not illegal to have sex with your sister, but it sure is wrong. Here's One Wisconsin Now's video about how his company has paid zero taxes since 1997. Did so legally, but garsh, that sure looks wrong.

He also blasted his opponent, Russ Feingold (aka The Feingold), who he did beat somehow. Ron accused Feingold, one of the few actual independent minds of the Senate, as being too loyal to his party, despite Feingold's reputation for being the exact opposite. Ron accused Feingold of being a party line rubber stamp. Now, from what I can tell, Ron has voted exclusively along party lines thus far. In fact, he's been nothing but a parrot of Republican toady lines since being elected. Shit, his staff is all made up of Republican beltway lifers. Even on the protests in his own state (and mine, too) he appeared to be completely incompetent on the matter, as if it was an uprising on some distant moon, but he was able to squawk out the party line about "thugs" and do so on on cue. So, you know, just another hypocritical, uppity, elitist, millionaire with billionaire friends. Folksy. Down to earth like that. Full of lies the way some other people are full of things like blood and muscles.

Oh, then there's the fact that he about broke his puppet masters wrist being the first republican senator to call for Rep. Weiner's resignation for those cock shots Rep Weiner took. Naturally a senator from Wisconsin has all the right to call for the removal of an individual from a different branch of government who represents a different state entirely. That's the way things work, I suppose. HOWEVER! Where Ron lives he is represented by State Senator Randy Hopper in the Wisconsin legislature. This is the same Randy Hopper who left his wife for a young lobbyist. Randy didn't sent cock photos, so I guess that makes it okay...he was just simply boning a lobbyist and destroying his family is all. Ron has not called for Randy, the guy who represents him in the the state house, to resign. Interesting. I already said hypocritical, so I let's just let this paragraph serve as me underlining it.

Another thing, he made this awkward video here (I swear, clearly he didn't read to his children when they were young because how do you get this far in politics and be that bad stiff at reading aloud) where he tries to present himself as some kind of genius businessman who knows all about the economy. (He also hops onto an insignificant quip by the president and tries to make as much party line hay out of it as he can). Actually, his plastics company, he kind of married into it. His company's biggest client is his father-in-law's company. The company he owned and operated...co-founded by his brother-in-law. Right. Business genius. He's good in business like how European royalty was good at real estate. So, let's add misrepresentation to the list, which we kind of had already with his false folksy-ness.

Then there's also his habit of doing things that aren't exactly criminal, but damn sure look it. He also dropped that "people like you" line in that's quoted in the second linked article about his response to questions on how convenient it was that his former company gave him pretty much the exact amount needed to cover the funds he spent on his campaign. So we have criminal and elitist again, underlined.

The list can go on and on, but one last one. During a debate with Feingold, I'm not kidding here, Ron said something about bring "drobs" to Wisconsin. Not jobs, which is what he meant, but "drobs." Yeah, anybody can misspeak, but for God's sake, "drobs." Drobs?

So, to sum up, Ron is a hollow, phony, selfish, elitist, fraud of a man who hoodwinked and bought an electorate made up of people whose main goal seems to be to hurt themselves as much as possible, and he did so by use of millions upon millions of dollars of his own money and millions and millions of dollars belonging to his billionaire backers (Upon his election, Ron made sure to personally thank the US Chamber of Commerce for his win.). And he beat one of the last decent politicians in the US Senate. His election replaced principles with avarice, compassion with selfishness and our better angels with our worst fears. He beat a politician willing to stand up to his party, willing to do what's correct and fair even when unpopular.

Ron you are an ignoble Johnson. Do us Johnsons a favor and give up your surname.

The Noble Johnsons

Friends and neighbors it has become increasingly apparent that certain Johnsons in the world are sullying the good name of Johnson for the rest of us. It is in that spirit that my good friend and fellow Johnson Bryan and I have decided to create this blog to both condemn Johnsons who have besmirched our good name and to celebrate the good works of Johnsons the world over.

While there will be plenty of time to admonish the poorest of Johnsons, and we will do that, today, in this inaugural post, I'd like to, very briefly, celebrate one great Johnson: my dad. (A longer post to come either around his birthday or the next fathers day.)

Besides aiding in the creation of yours truly, William "Bill" Johnson is the model by which all Johnsons should measure themselves. He is both a smart and funny man, who, unlike Christopher Columbus who has a fucking holiday in his name, has NEVER committed mass genocide.

It is for those reasons and many more (to be enumerated in the future) that I hereby propose that we, as a nation, refuse to celebrate Columbus day--all he did was "discover" a well inhabited place and kill the inhabitants--and in its stead we honor a real Noble Johnson on William Johnson Day.

I propose we still get the day off.