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The Will Durst Journal
The Week of April 13, 2021
The Vault

Burst of Durst Podcasts
In which our intrepid correspondent…
…skitters about the ongoing circus currently raging inside the Beltway.
…makes a few conjectures about what the hell is going on.
…offers up his considerable opinions on the early election processes.
…gets confused, not an entirely original sort of occasion.
…reports back on the various goings- on amidst our nations movers and shakers over the summer.
…shows a little love for the wallflower of holidays.
…rouses from his wilted state to pound out a few words to curse the heat and urge it to stop.
…jumps into the gun fray while still attempting to avoid turning into collateral damage.
…deciphers a way to tell when the politicians are working us.
…remarks on the highly anticipated return of Robert S. Mueller III.
…bellows politely over the greenwashing of the White House concerning the red versus the blue.
…sings the joys of summer.
…casts a practiced but jaundiced eye on the current crop of potential democratic candidates and their debating maneuvers.
…skips through all the psycho-babble and tells it like it is.
…lets loose with some pent- up frustrations.
…attempts to boil down what Bob Mueller is trying to tell us.
…applauds the president for his prestidigitation skills and ruminates on future diversions.
…goes off. On a rant. Yes. Again. As he does.
…offers up a modest and timely proposal.
…ponders and equivocates and dawdles and can’t quite come to a conclusion.
…offers up a few opinions on the report from special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.
…bemoans the state of the democratic party in general and white men in specific.
…wiggles with excitement over the hurling of a horsehide.
…muddies the water by tossing out a few archaic bromides about the Mueller Report.
…gets all persnickety about some rich kids and their parents.
…goes back and forth focusing on the inevitable.
…gets to swing the other way. And just before spring training too.
…muses extensively on the wall.
…looks back with some incredulity and more than a little confusion.
…imagines the SOTU.
…rights the wrongs of the season.
…figures out a way to change the course of the planet. For good.
…looks over the past year with an equal mixture of glee and dismay.
…offers up a few suggestions to fill that darn deficit hole.
…takes off his gloves and socks to count his blessings.
…wonders aloud at how close we are, and yet still, so far away.
…goes all spooky knocking around with hobgoblins and ghouls.
…rants and raves about foreign entanglements and beheadings.
…once again emerges victorious by chronicling madness and remaining sane.
…gets a little strident but for a good cause.
…gets in touch with his distaff side and is repulsed by the GOP.
…tackles the dance world, totally alien to him considering he has two left feet.
…goes all gooey on a silly little holiday.
…climbs down the rabbit hole to find the future bones of a presidency.
…tries to get in the spirit of things by getting down and dirty.
…goes slightly mad and babbles on and on about the shady, depraved and transgressive administration. Ain’t that always the way.
…gets off the political stump to talk about other stumps.
…vacillates between questioning whether our president’s Helsinki behavior was betrayal or treason.
…comments with attendant snark on the prospective new berobed one.
…throws some well deserved heat the democrats way.
…gives a red white and blue shout out for the birthday party.
…gets almost kind of semi serious.
…makes more spurious accusations as is his wont.
…worries the president is caught in a reality television loop.
…heads for the high road and takes a low turn.
…lights some candles and offers up a few gift remarks.
…gets all involved in the question of questions.
…reveals the target that our president painted on his own chest.
…goes all walking dead on you.
…acts out one of his boyhood dreams of working as a weatherman.
…sits back to watch with popcorn and peanuts.
…conflates and confuses a couple of spring traditions.
…doesn’t get mad he gets angry.
…wants to tamp down the democrats and their noisemakers but that’s redundant isn’t it?
…says, “you made your bed, now, shit in it.”
…jumps on the anti gun bandwagon with both feet.
…gets to the bottom of the latest DC fruit craze.
…gets off a few zingers at our president’s expense.
…gives a detailed plan to get totally plastered on Tuesday.
…reviews the first couple days of 2018 and aurally shudders.
…endeavors to make silly yet trenchant forecasts.
2017
…tries to stuff the chasm between what we get and what we deserve.
…reviews and elaborates on the flogging the middle class just received.
…hedges his excitement.
…looks back over the not so stellar year that was 2017. But hey. We survived.
…gets serious about the spate of men who should be spayed.
…places his napkin on his lap and bows his head with equal modicums of grace and smarm.
…goes down an ancient road that never gets old.
…channels the wheels of the halls of just us.
…goes all orange and black on your ass.
…talks about the connection between barrels and widows and phone calls.
…details the mud slinging scale currently embroiling Washington.
…takes both sides to task for their predictability.
…gets in a three point stance before bursting through the offensive line.
…gets all meteorological on someone’s ass.
…digs deep to get to the bottom of the summer migration.
…waxes poetic about the runt of the holiday litter.
…decodes the special language our president uses to discommunicate.
…gets caught up in the latest Trump trapeze act and does it without a net.
…attempts to find humor in the ultimate unfunny subject and to a surprising degree succeeds.
…discusses the failure of a single bill and the survival of health care for many others.
…digs deep into his clairvoyance to discover a pattern of annoyance and avoidance.
…discusses the dilemma that is fathers and sons, real and fake.
…bounces back and forth like a celluloid ball on a porcelain table.
…congratulates Trump supporters for being so absolutely right.
…goes the other way and looks on the Brightside.
…performs an autopsy on the former FBI Director’s testimony.
…chronicles one short week in the mosaic of a dumpy charlatan.
…pulls out the grill and prepares to char some flesh.
…thanks the president for at least keeping it interesting.
…gets all crime and punishment on your ass.
…starts to go all medically astute and stuff.
…gives the President of the United States the once over and grades his performance.
…offers up a few amusing remarks on the threat of the end of civilization as we know it.
…goes deep into his guise as mild mannered investigative reporter.
…gets all cloak and daggery.
…gets all riled up about the hoops the president chooses to jump through.
…gets all riled up about the hoops the president chooses to jump through.
…advocates we all start getting creative.
…runs the risk of having to hire a food tester.
…goes ballistic on the phony.
…quickly closes the door to the cabinet to contain the horrible smell.
…envisions the imaginary.
…envisions the imaginary.
…looks down the road apiece to gauge the progress of the country's new POTUS.
…whelps out the more reluctant of us in their resolutions for the following year.
…waves a not so tearful goodbye to the previous year.
* * *
2016
…plays a rather vengeful Santa Claus.
…throws a little gasoline on the rhetoric fire.
…waves a fond farewell to the annus horriblis that was the sixth year of the second decade of the twenty first century.
…investigates the learning curve of the new kid in town.
…provides some advice for all the prodigal sons and daughters during the holiday season.
…provides some advice for all the prodigal sons and daughters during the holiday season.
…is all confused about everyone who is confused. It’s a confusion spiral.
…gets all black and orange on us
…offers up a few tips for future candidate humor attempts.
…reports on many hits below the belt. Yes. Again.
…fondly looks back at the best circus in town.
…goes all crystal ball on us.
…plays doctor.
…gets a little NASCAR on your ass.
…waxes poetic on the runt of the holiday litter.
…goes all crystal ball on us.
…seeks to bind us together instead of pry us apart.
…waxes poetic about the first woman presidential nominee of a major political party.
…goes from Trumpalicious to Trumpocalypse.
…gets all junior miss on you.
…urther infected with the whole vice presidential fever thing.
…gets infected with a little vice presidential fever.
…gets in a few quick shots on the Nigerian Prince of presidential candidates.
…gets under the skin of the NRA and discovers something cold blooded.
…includes himself in some sweeping generalizations.
…lobbies to give the American people a real choice.
…admires the complicated gyrations necessary to be a Republican these days.
…gets all riled up.
…looks into the future and it’s not pretty.
…stares into the abyss of Hades and Hades stares back.
…breaks rank to give credit where credit is due.
…hands out the swag to the least deserving of us.
…examines the other side of the nasty coin.
…wonders if Trump has had his Kafka moment.
…tries to remind Donald Trump that women can vote now too.
…takes a leisurely lap around the various Stop Trump Movements.
…surveys the wreckage of the 18 car pile- up that was Super Tuesday.
…tries to separate fact from fiction in the interest of protecting back doors everywhere.
…jumps into the SCOTUS fray, which can turn into a rash if a salve isn’t applied with alacrity.
…investigates the opposite of winning
…gets winded listing all the winners..
…explains what the hell is going on.
…doesn’t even weigh in on Florida or New Mexico or New Caledonia Values.
…takes up from where the President left off and then kind of goes a bit wacky.
…looks into his crustal ball and it breaks.
* * *
2015
…plays fast and loose with blasphemy.
…once again rejects the conventional wisdom.
…looks back over the humorous parts of the recent annus horriblus and mocks them in order to form a mental scab.
…takes a couple of cheap shots at our national brownnoser.
…pays tribute to the proud perspicacity of the plucky pilgrims in a pacific paean to our peculiar propensity for plumpish poultry.
…goes off the politically correct deep end to kvetch about political expediency.
…asks the old Seinfeld question “who are these people?”
…gives equal spleen time to the battling democrats.
…gives the new controversial trade pact his inimitable smart ass spin.
…takes issue with Michael Douglas’s most famous line. Except for saying “No” to Kathleen Turner in Romancing the Stone.
…finds the funny in the thicket of Republicans. #thick
…calls in a bunch of favors to bring you up to date hot scoops.
…whines about his biological clock being stuck on elementary school time.
…gets a little listy.
…bemoans the current state of politics where the apprentices rule.
…questions the locomotive awareness of the Trump Train with typical scorn and derision. Just another anguished rant with big words.
…goes all Racing Form right before the big old GOP debate.
…channels George Clinton, because there ain’t no party like a P-Funk party cuz a P-Funk Party don’t stop.
…goes after the man with the edifice complex.
…updates an old commentary. Hey, it’s called recycling and is very popular out here on the left coast.
…gets his Yankees and Dixies all mixed up.
…rethinks that whole separation of church and state thing.
…explains his delight at not being a denizen of the Dark Ages.
…goes on and on and on about some silly little bill designed to gut the 4th Amendment.
…updates part of his little one man show to fill up a commentary slot. But hey, it’s funny. And some new stuff.
…chronicles the major faux pas and various wrong turns made over the last week.
…asks the age-old question: where to find a decent brisket sandwich in Iowa.
…trampling down more cherished assumptions.
…has no prescription for our national self inflicted contagion.
…appreciates the arrival of race season.
…affords us a small sampling of his long history of philanthropic endeavors.
…takes exception to the brouhaha going down in the Hoosier State.
…gets excited over the sighting of the nominational robin.
…dreams a big dream.
…tries to discretely address Hillary’s email problems.
…gets all bent out of shape. Yes, again.
…is confused by simple things like wright and rong.
…weighs in on another sticky subject and manages to mangle it just like always.
…takes a trip down memory lane and completely forgets where the hell he is.
…speaks from right where he should be, under a rock.
…prepares himself against the cold.
…calls himself a satirist even though he’s not sure what it means.
…trots out an oldie but a goldie.
* * *
2014
…embarks on a futile quest to keep the spirit of the season alive.
…gets a rash from rubbing up against more strange bushes.
…is shocked, shocked, he says, to find out the CIA was lying.
…looks back over the most recent annus horriblus and mocks. As is his way.
…, in the spirit of the season, gives back.
…gets all sentimental and stuff.
…drowns his sorrows with snark.
…offers up a 2nd amendment solution to the Ebola crisis.
…tries to swallow enough candy corn to get all spooky like.
…offers up a modest proposal.
…smashes up two frightening calendar events.
…is able to dig out some funny from a very serious subject.
…gets a bit radical.
…feels bad for his smart phone being wielded by such a dumb user.
…calls attendance on the first day back to school.
…takes a couple minutes to talk about the true American heroes.
…tiptoes along those fine lines that separate commentary, spite and naked envy.
…jumps off the journalistic pier into some deep- water bold face vacation gossip.
…talks smack about our elected representatives. Yes. Again.
…digs deep into Boehner’s brain and gets nowhere.
…gets all hot and bothered about something pretty far down the line.
…appropriately does little about nothing.
…makes the painful admission that he doesn’t mind much being digitally probed.
…repurposes an old commentary. Hey, its called recycling and is very popular out here on the left coast.
…once again tries to help with his typical aplomb.
…flops for football.
…tests the limits of the irony setting.
…waxes poetic on his love hate relationship with a piece of technology.
…gets a bit wound up.
…offers up some unsolicited advice which may very well come in handy. Or not.
…greases up his knees to do the new dance rage.
…gets a little racy surprised we aren’t beyond all this.
…leaps headfirst into the controversy surrounding what may be the laser discs of wearable computers.
…once again goes out of his way to try to help.
…investigates the age-old question: what do women want?
…gets all Al Gore on your ass.
…says ten dollars here. Ten dollars there. That stuff adds up.
…cries me a river.
…goes all psychotherapy on the White House.
…casts some dastardly aspersions on Arizona: America’s Uganda.
…jumps eyes wide shut headfirst onto the shiny awards bandwagon with a great flying leap and sticky squid tentacles to prevent overshooting.
…very trepidaciously enters the smoking zone.
…contemplates just not eating anything ever again.
…talks about the future Romanovs.
…channels Confucius’s complaint: “Life is simple, yet we insist on making it complicated.
…discovers that while no man may be an island, some men are major peninsulas.
…waltzes down a well trod road.
* * *
2013
…gets into the Santa business, albeit late.
…crosses the river Styx19&*!
…makes the proposition that there are no safe houses.
…looks back onto the year with the jaundiced eye of a Burmese hepatitis ward.
…turkeys till he trots.
…performs amazing feats of clairvoyance but remains in the dark concerning impending fortunes.
…defends the president as he goes through his Katrina moment.
…under the thrall of sodium pentothal gets in the ways of deep cover.
…goes deep underground as a health care avatar and ends up blue.
…gets his dander up.
…takes pains to give the boys and girls of Washington the meager extreme of the benefit of the doubt.
…plumbs the depths of demented demands.
…admires a man for taking demagoguery to new heights.
…dips a toe into the diplomatic waters of pre war entrance strategies.
…in a decidedly supercilious way gets semi-serious about Syria.
…speaks about the first Monday of September with affection.
…plays on the other side of the street where the grass is often greener.
…peers into his crystal ball and finds it kind of fuzzy.
…trods on grim Anderson and Aesop territory.
…takes on the haters by totally defending the best state in the union.
…calls for a slight bit of American contraction.
…digs deep to channel his good ol boy.
…follows in Michael J Fox’s footsteps back to the future.
…gets a little misty eyed to be perfectly honest about it.
…channels a celebratory mood for all who were once disenfranchised and are now co-opted.
…makes a few suggestions to help things along.
…goes deep to get to the bottom of the latest NSA skullduggery.
…sticks his nose into some business that has little to do with the Balkan States.
…tries desperately to extricate himself from the sticky embrace of 2 of America’s least favorite organizations.
…wants to know who knew what when and why.
…blinds himself with knitting needles in order not to see what’s going on. Ow
…purports to be truly concerned but we're secretly convinced he's just droning on.
…wades into the knee deep reformed political doo doo currently taking the country by storm.
…gets a mite shall we say, worked up.
…jumps into the batters box and knocks another one out of the park.
…explains why our chief robe wearers are pretty.
…jumps into the embalming arts with a rather distressing and off-putting gusto.
…investigates the newest strategy by the White House: flirting.
…defends the future reputation of his entire generation.
…waits for puffs of white smoke, just like back in the bad old days.
…talks about the Rebs inside the Reds.
…looks into the crystal ball and forecasts what the country will see at the SOTU.
…jumps headfirst onto the shiny awards bandwagon with a great flying leap.
…gives two thumbs up to the President’s propitious return to the land of the living.
…notes a sea change while sounding a warning alarm for the new generation.
…takes the time to salvage some missed opportunities.
* * *
2012
…just goes off. Again. About something. Who knows what.
…lamely and vainly tries to put a not so glum spin on the incredibly appalling heartbreaking events in Connecticut.
…distills the current brouhaha into an easily understood tempest.
…accepts the disheartening responsibility of telling Lindsay Lohan, Psy, Mark Zuckerberg, Hurricane Sandy and Jerry Sandusky they didn’t make the cut.
…calls it as he sees it. Yes, again.
…waxes eloquent on those that make his job so much easier.
…probes the distaff distance that thwarted Mitt Romney's presidential bid.
…consults his crystal ball and hazards a guess at who's going to come out ahead after all is said and done in this exceedingly unseemly contest.
…waxes eloquently concerning much ado about more malarkey.
…reports from ringside at the undercard. D'uh.
…attempts to figure out what went down in the first Presidential debate.
…peers into his crystal ball and grumbles at what he sees.
…references a candidate who makes out of touch seem like a goal.
…bravely pushes his way deep into the bipartisan bouncy house.
…reports from the belly of another beast.
…struggles to dig out form the thigh deep pool of red white and blue confetti.
…carefully yet humorously attempts to navigate the mine strewn fields of rencent news.
…digs deep into the man behind the name on the bottom of the ticket.
…puts the President in the Olympics whether he wants to be or not.
…reviews the presumptive GOP nominee's lurching European Vacation
…dives in with a few conjectures about Mitt Romney's deductions.
…tries to get to the nitty gritty of whether WIllard was lying then or now.
…jumps back into the health care fray with both feet.
…gets mired down in a batch of International intrigue and has fun with numbers.
…remarks on the drive for cash currently occupying our esteemed combatants' focus.
…reflects on the spectacle of the shape shifter mixing it with the dufus.
…waxes poetic about the lovely space that goes down between the end of spring and the beginning of fall.
…takes a minute to speak to the wildly enthusiastic endorsements the Romney campaign is racking up.
…applauds the chief executive for finally using his powers for good.
…once again dives into the latest political zeitgeist with both feet suffering from plantar faciitis.
…investigates the new tiny targets of polls destined to reflect our true feelings as long as we don't lie.
…accuses the challenger of accusing he incumbent of everything he and we and you and I are guilty of.
…finds the wormhole between two eerie worlds where the laws of physics and logic have been suspended.
…goes to great lengths to treat his pre- existing condition of ignorance.
…dives into the Super PAC arena without a jet pack but wishing for one.
…gets all fuzzy and green for you my droogies.
…reflects on what was to be a watershed moment but just seems to be kind of watery.
…touches upon both Mitt Romney and the sisterwife who speaks for him.
…takes an overt hostility to a candidate which is leading him to the guillotine.
…jumps on the shiny award bandwagon with both feet and not lightly either.
…theorizes that there's something about Mitt.
…wonders if Michele Bachmann is the new Erika Kane.
…reads between the lines of the President's 3rd SOTU.
…steals from Sarah Palin and calls the mainstream, the lamestream.
…looks forward to the carnage that promises to be the South Carolina primary.
* * *
2011
…throws around a few words concerning the left ventricle of the Heartland.
…rectifies possible mistakes made by Santa later this weekend.
…admits to being a bit tickled at the GOP realization that one of these guys is going to be their nominee.
…is grateful he doesn’t have to personally inform the Kardashians they didn’t make the cut.
…goes behind the scenes to find out what the heck is going on with the GOP game of Whack-A-Mole.
…subliminally encourages tryptophan poisoning and four story tall balloons careening off of Manhattan lampposts
…ruminates about the accusations threatening to derail the Cain Train.
…walks a few miles in the shoes of our politicians down the mean streets of Washington DC.
…gets wrapped up in a logic loop like a cat in double stick tape.
…wonders where battle tested stops and shell shock begins.
…ponders the meaning of the Republican Party’s newest flavor of the week.
…goes yard with this rant on the banking industry.
…talks about one night stands and jittery suitors.
…reports from the front lines of the class war embedded in a velvet tank.
…offers up a few modest proposals to help get this country back on its feet.
…talks about a recent gathering of people who want to be President and $2 a gallon gas. But not in that order.
…pledges to make no pledge except for the very important Lemon Pledge.
…throws down with a few words about the man they call Captain Haircut.
…investigates the special committee that is the bane of the Justice League.
…reflects upon the situation in which Obama called himself the only adult in the room.
…tap dances around the fact that he has no idea what’s going on.
… once again tries to put things in perspective.
…considers the debt crisis by throwing up his arms and saying “yech.”
…takes on the onerous task of defending the folks that F. Scott Fitzgerald claim are different from you and me.
…throws a red, white and blue spotlight on dead solid summer.
…talks about how we might be able to make a couple of Benjamins.
…recounts the initial showdown between the loyal opposition who prove to be not all that loyal.
…tries to take the high road by addressing this very messy situation with a folded towel over his arm.
…gives just a sample of the cacophony we can expect to experience over the next 17 months.
…waxes poetic about the lovely time that can be had between the end of spring and the beginning of fall.
…finds it hard to argue against the general impression that men possess porcine DNA.
…questions whether the Marietta Mauler has what it takes to go all the way.
…comments on the passing of the world champion hide and seeker.
…resigns himself to the fact that this silliness is far from over.
…shakes his with wonderment at the addictive nature of knowing what’s right for everyone.
…delves deep into the complexities of the near government shutdown and comes up with few if any conclusions.
…once again descends into Durst Case Scenario territory.
…weighs in with a typically confused reaction to our latest war like behavior.
…tries to make sense out of the senseless and the heartless and the clueless.
…chronicles the naked power grab that has resulted in a mugging in Madison.
* * *
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