Fragrant candles
Colbert is going to have a great time with this:
“Largely decorated by Limbaugh himself, [his Palm Beach house] reflects the things and places he has seen and admired. A massive chandelier in the dining room, for example, is a replica of the one that hung in the lobby of New York’s Plaza Hotel. The vast salon is meant to suggest Versailles. The main guest suite, which I didn’t visit, is an exact replica of the Presidential Suite at the Hotel George V in Paris. There is a full suit of armor on display, as well as a life-size oil painting of El Rushbo. Fragrant candles burned throughout the house, a daily home-from-the-wars ritual.”
May 24, 2010 11:50 pm
Posted in: Burkean bells
100 Comments
100 Responses
russell - May 24, 2010 | 11:52 pm · Link
Dudes got issues. Just saying.
williamc - May 24, 2010 | 11:53 pm · Link
home from what wars? The war of him v. the buffet at Ryan’s Steakhouse? wtf?
Rosali - May 24, 2010 | 11:55 pm · Link
ok, I’m gagging at the idea of a life-size painting of El Rushbo
Martin - May 24, 2010 | 11:56 pm · Link
@williamc: The drug war playing out in the glove box of his car, most likely.
Mike Kay - May 24, 2010 | 11:57 pm · Link
man of the people.
salt of the earth.
also, too.
funny, all that (including a hillbilly heroin stash) and chicks still won’t fuck him.
Bnut - May 24, 2010 | 11:58 pm · Link
I wonder how the new digs in Costa Rica will treat him.
Steeplejack - May 24, 2010 | 11:58 pm · Link
Gotta say it’s probably no different at Diddy’s house, except for the obligatory Scarface memorabilia. Hell, Limbaugh probably has some of that, too. Or maybe Wolverines!
williamc - May 24, 2010 | 11:59 pm · Link
this just reminds me that I had 1 oxycontin the other day, 15mgs, and a drink, and it put me on my ass and made me see stars for most of the afternoon…how did his fat ass put away so many everyday?
Jim, Foolish Literalist - May 25, 2010 | 12:01 am · Link
Tacky, desperate, insecure wannabe-megalomaniac.
In a similar piece from a couple years back, it was reported (“reported”) that his servants have a standing order to light those scented candles ten minutes before the Master arrives home. Seems to me it must have been in 2004, because I vaguely recall him calling John Kerry an elitist at about the same time the article appeared.
handy - May 25, 2010 | 12:03 am · Link
@russell:
Yeah it’s called being wealthy.
Linda Featheringill - May 25, 2010 | 12:03 am · Link
It is amazing how much bad taste money can buy.
soonergrunt - May 25, 2010 | 12:04 am · Link
@williamc: Well, the fat ass is a big part of that. That’s an awful lot of tissue to medicate.
He took enough to destroy his hearing, anyway.
http://dir.salon.com/news/feat.....index.html
http://www.after50health.com/u.....-loss.html
Punchy - May 25, 2010 | 12:07 am · Link
But where does he keep the young Dominican boys (aside from next to the oxy and Via’gra)?
MikeBoyScout - May 25, 2010 | 12:08 am · Link
Wait a minute.
“Largely decorated by Limbaugh himself, [his Palm Beach house] reflects the things and places he has seen and admired.
[snip]
There is a full suit of armor on display, [snip] as well as a life-size oil painting of El Rushbo [snip]. ....”
Seriously? He hung a life size painting of himself because he has seen and admired himself?
I thought he had ear problems, not eye problems.
Warren Terra - May 25, 2010 | 12:10 am · Link
Someplace over the weekend, I’m not sure where (maybe in the New York Times?) I read a very sorrowful commentary about the Chafets book basically saying that a smart and talented writer had produced a piece of inexcusable hackwork and puffery, because while a good biography of Limbaugh might be interesting, a passable hagiography would ensure him access to his subject, was sure to make him a load of money, and would likely set him up to repeat the process with other luminaries of the right.
And that last point, of establishing his credentials as the go-to guy for lazy hagiography, is probably pretty important: Sarah Palin has to sign her name to a book she’s never read every year or so, and once she does there’s going to be plenty of money for everyone involved. And just like many people are said to have a book in them, I feel certain that Rand Paul’s brand has a book in it.
aimai - May 25, 2010 | 12:10 am · Link
As the frum turns.
aimai
Tyro - May 25, 2010 | 12:11 am · Link
“I relished his bravado, laughed at his outrageous satire, and admired his willingness to go against the intellectual grain.”
Why is it that conservatives appear to have no idea what the word “satire” means?
The Other Steve - May 25, 2010 | 12:11 am · Link
Frum’s interesting. He actually responded to an email I sent him about one of his articles.
He’s someone who needs to be encouraged, although like a scorpion I worry he’ll prick the turtle taking him across the river.
williamc - May 25, 2010 | 12:12 am · Link
@MikeBoyScout:
sounds to me like he has a Scarlett O’Hara/Suzanne Sugerbaker complex…or a “make up stuff that you think a wanna-be Charles Foster Kane would have in his house and print it” puff piece…
Joseph Nobles - May 25, 2010 | 12:14 am · Link
Man, this title really cries out for a lisp:
Fwagwent cannels
carpeicthus - May 25, 2010 | 12:14 am · Link
That sounds exactly like Saddam’s palace.
kid bitzer - May 25, 2010 | 12:14 am · Link
but the wapo forgot to tell us the most important thing:
does he cross his legs when he sits down?
suzanne - May 25, 2010 | 12:15 am · Link
As a modernist, that description of his palace made me fuckin’ twitchy.
The tacky, get it off me, IT BURNS.
Incertus (Brian) - May 25, 2010 | 12:15 am · Link
@carpeicthus: Or like Biff Tannen’s place from Back to the Future 2.
El Cid - May 25, 2010 | 12:16 am · Link
@carpeicthus: It sounds like any tinpot cacique who made it big and wants to show his super-rich superiors that he can blow money just like them.
It’s exactly like the tackiest of the hip-hop cribs shown on MTV where everything is about wretched excess.
SpotWeld - May 25, 2010 | 12:18 am · Link
Take out the part where it says it’s owned by Rush and pretend he’s reading it in a derisive voice on his show… can you imagine the anticipation in a winger’s head as the wonder what elitist liberal would live in such a place so divorced from “real Americans”.
Al Gore? Clinton? Kerry?
El Cid - May 25, 2010 | 12:22 am · Link
Outside the house incident, there’s this:
Having once heard a lackluster, non-insightful speech by Fat Tony Scalia, I’ve got to put Rush as their equals.
And you can be any sort of snobbish multi-millionaire jackass, but if you comport yourself as a RealMurkan, than by magic you transform into a commoner, just like the super-ultra-elitist Bush Jr.
asiangrrlMN - May 25, 2010 | 12:24 am · Link
You know who else has fragrant candles? John Cole. I’m just sayin’.
@Warren Terra: That could be my in to the perpetual rightwing gravy train!
@Linda Featheringill: No kidding. I shuddered at this brief description of Limbaugh’s abode. Ugh.
rob! - May 25, 2010 | 12:25 am · Link
I’m sure Rush puts on one, and masturbates to the other.
Martin - May 25, 2010 | 12:30 am · Link
@kid bitzer: Given his girth, I wonder if it’s even physically possible for him to.
soonergrunt - May 25, 2010 | 12:33 am · Link
@rob!: Well, he’s a right winger war fan who skipped out of his generation’s war, so I have to ask—just how do you see him putting on a painting, cause we all know what he’s doing to the armor suit…
Adrienne - May 25, 2010 | 12:37 am · Link
@williamc:
I think you just answered your own question.
Fern - May 25, 2010 | 12:38 am · Link
@asiangrrlMN: Here are pictures of his New York apartment. It’s dreadful, but it sounds like the other one is even worse.
mistersnrub - May 25, 2010 | 12:41 am · Link
Sounds like a wonderful home that this closet queen will inevitably die alone in.
Redshift - May 25, 2010 | 12:44 am · Link
@Tyro:
What do you mean? They know exactly what it means! It means “Of course I wasn’t being racist/bigoted, you’re just a humorless liberal who doesn’t get the joke!”
Anne Laurie - May 25, 2010 | 12:47 am · Link
@rob!:
Only if he had that armor specially hand-crafted to his overfleshed measurements, because the authentic versions were not made in Size XXXXXXXL, not even for Henry VIII. Of course, it’s unlikely anything in the Limbaugh pleasure dome is any more “authentic” than its owner (how many scented candles does it take to cover the stench of a rotting soul?). To update what Frank Zappa is supposed to have said about Ike Turner’s 1970s pad: “I never knew it was possible to spend $10,000,000 at Wal-Mart!”
Fern - May 25, 2010 | 12:50 am · Link
Oops – link fail
http://gawker.com/5482793/rush.....w-for-sale
GregB - May 25, 2010 | 12:51 am · Link
Scented candle conservatives.
Quiddity - May 25, 2010 | 12:53 am · Link
First (and so far only) comment at the Washington Post for that book review:
handy - May 25, 2010 | 12:55 am · Link
I heard Limbaugh’s a Mac user too. Oh did I just go there?
Yep, I did.
asiangrrlMN - May 25, 2010 | 12:55 am · Link
@Fern: Oh mah gawd. That’s worse than I had imagined it in my mind (and let’s face it, I have a pretty vivid imagination). The man who lived there is the voice of the common people? Oh just fuck me now with a rusty pitchfork.
@Quiddity: DougJ, is that you???? (The commenter).
Scamp Dog - May 25, 2010 | 12:56 am · Link
That just about says it all, doesn’t it? I can’t wait for 1789.
Martin - May 25, 2010 | 12:58 am · Link
@Fern: Looks like he hired one of Trump’s decorators.
Martin - May 25, 2010 | 1:02 am · Link
@handy: Yeah, Dubya is a Mac user too. What can do you?
feebog - May 25, 2010 | 1:02 am · Link
Just gotta be rose petals delicately scattered in the toliets too, also.
mai naem - May 25, 2010 | 1:10 am · Link
ooh la la El Rushbo, il aimes les francais. Versailles, George V… Qu’allons nous faire? French fries??? libertes pommes de terres?
Jim, Foolish Literalist - May 25, 2010 | 1:14 am · Link
@mai naem: Heh. I had the same thought. Won’t all those dittoheads be shocked that El Lard-Bo prefers the cafés and boulevards of Gai Paree to the wholesome family entertainments of Branson?
Bill E Pilgrim - May 25, 2010 | 1:18 am · Link
@Fern: Yipes.
Why does the phrase “Give those nymphs some hooters” come to mind here….
Redshift - May 25, 2010 | 1:32 am · Link
@Anne Laurie:
Anne Laurie wins the thread.
Yutsano - May 25, 2010 | 1:54 am · Link
@asiangrrlMN: I’d already seen a couple of those photos, yeah ostentatious doesn’t even begin to describe it. But what the hell else is a thrice divorced fat ass with little to no charitable spirit going to do with $400 million dollars? (That incidentally is bankrupting his employer.)
Howdy y’all. I pulled through decently.
asiangrrlMN - May 25, 2010 | 1:59 am · Link
@Yutsano: Yutsy! Good to see you survived the surgery. Well, I can think of many things. Charity, traveling, books, black cat sanctuary to name a few….Oh, I missed the no charitable spirit part. You’re right. Ostentatious tackiness it is!
Martin - May 25, 2010 | 2:00 am · Link
@Yutsano: Hey! Good to see you, and spelling all the words correctly! Did the surgeons toss in any upgrades like a robotic duodenum or laser beams coming out your eyes or anything cool like that?
Calouste - May 25, 2010 | 2:02 am · Link
@Anne Laurie:
They did actually make them XXXXXL for Henry VIII:
Picture of his last armour at the end of the article
Earlier armor for Henry VIII was only XXXXXL in one peculiar department.
Martin - May 25, 2010 | 2:04 am · Link
@Calouste: Wow, we always think of Henry VIII as fat, but that barely qualifies as husky these days.
asiangrrlMN - May 25, 2010 | 2:11 am · Link
@Martin: That’s just what I was thinking. Rush could eat two Henry VIII and still have room to spare.
Yutsano - May 25, 2010 | 2:13 am · Link
@asiangrrlMN: The man is going to have a mausoleum constructed when he dies so others can bask in the greater glory of him Life to Rush is all about Rush period. All else is commentary.
@Martin: I should have thought to ask for something like that. As it was I spent more time in recovery than in the surgery itself. Now I’m just dealing with the pain (which isn’t too bad now but I’m afraid it’s gonna hit me harder tomorrow) and relaxing for a day or two from work.
fucen tarmal - May 25, 2010 | 2:18 am · Link
the beautiful thing, in this case, about heroin abuse is that the body strives for a way to sense the pain that the oxy contin blocks, thus the nerve endings of a habitual user like limbaugh will sickle and exaggerate and advance his susceptibility to pain….i hope, in this sense limbaugh lives a long, long life.
asiangrrlMN - May 25, 2010 | 2:18 am · Link
@Yutsano: There was actually a little part of me that felt sorry for Rush after viewing those pictures. He must be so fucking empty inside. However, I squelched that part of me so I can go back to being appalled and horrified by the carwreck that is Limbaugh.
@fucen tarmal: Really? You just made me smile a bit. That effectively kills the sympathetic to Rush part of me.
Yutsano - May 25, 2010 | 2:23 am · Link
@asiangrrlMN: Name me one good for society Rush Limbaugh has done. Just one. Go ahead I’ll wait. While your brain is straining to come up with an example, let me remind you of all the damage he has done> To wit:
“I hope he fails”
Saying Donovan McNabb only has a job as a starter because he’s black
Dismissing his racist commentary by insisting he is only joking
Becoming a drug addict himself while condemning poor non-white drug addicts to long prison sentences with no chance of rehabilitation
That’s just off the top of my head. He’s a pustule on the ass of our society.
Chuck Butcher - May 25, 2010 | 2:25 am · Link
@asiangrrlMN:
I honestly don’t try to think anything about what drives Rush. I don’t want to know and don’t want to put my mind in a position to understand that kind of mess. It requires empathy to get enough insight to to understand. Nope.
asiangrrlMN - May 25, 2010 | 2:26 am · Link
@Yutsano: Oh, I know. I just feel sorry for him the person because he’s such a complete and utter waste of space with no there there. Still, he has his millions and women who apparently have no qualms about sleeping with him (ugh), so whatever.
@Chuck Butcher: Yeah. It’s a slippery slope because with someone like Rush, it would be too easy to get sucked in and not find your way out again. Unfortunately, my mind works in such a way that I try to figure out what makes people tick.
bago - May 25, 2010 | 2:26 am · Link
@Martin:I doubt Yutsano has the funding of The Illusive Man.
Wile E. Quixote - May 25, 2010 | 2:29 am · Link
@asiangrrlMN:
Hmmm, do you think that Rush is into naked mopping too? Naaaahhh, he’s got a staff for that.
asiangrrlMN - May 25, 2010 | 2:32 am · Link
@Wile E. Quixote: Staff…naked mopping…Rush…UGH!
@Wile E. Quixote: I like the blend of Nietzsche and LOLCat speak.
Wile E. Quixote - May 25, 2010 | 2:33 am · Link
@Chuck Butcher:
Good plan. Remember what Nietzsche said about that sort of thing: “Battle not with wingnuts lest ye become a wingnut and if ye gaze long enough into teh stoopid, teh stoopid gazes also into you.”
Yutsano - May 25, 2010 | 2:35 am · Link
@Wile E. Quixote: There is not enough brain bleach in existence to scrub that mental image from my mind. You shall be receiving my therapy bills forthwith.
fucen tarmal - May 25, 2010 | 2:37 am · Link
@asiangrrlMN:
opioid induced hyperalgesia.its not well understood, we haven’t had many rich junkies to study, i can imagine, if he is off the stuff, he probably isn’t too comfortable.
Warren Terra - May 25, 2010 | 2:46 am · Link
to be fair to Hank The Eight (Divorced, beheaded, died! Divorced, beheaded, survived!), he was a great athlete as a young man (horses, hunting), and got fat after a bad sports injury benched him.
asiangrrlMN - May 25, 2010 | 2:47 am · Link
@fucen tarmal: My god. The evil part of my heart is inordinately happy about this. How you doing? You safe?
gocart mozart - May 25, 2010 | 2:49 am · Link
Thing must be huge!
Wile E. Quixote - May 25, 2010 | 2:54 am · Link
@Yutsano:
You know, some people have to do serious drugs to think of things like that, not me though, things like that just pop into my head. What can I say? It’s a gift.
Wile E. Quixote - May 25, 2010 | 2:58 am · Link
Damn, I put the words oⅹyⅽoⅾone and Ⅴⅰⅽoⅾⅰn into a post without using my way cool surefire way of getting them past the moderation filter and am now in moderation Hell.
Yutsano - May 25, 2010 | 2:59 am · Link
@Wile E. Quixote: You must use your powers for good sir. Anger, fear, hatred, the Dark Side are they.
BTW hate to cut this short especially after being zoned out all day but I don’t think anesthesia is totally out of my system yet. So I’ll find y’all on the morrow.
fucen tarmal - May 25, 2010 | 3:02 am · Link
@asiangrrlMN:
i’m safer than a nun in a condom factory. how is life up north?
asiangrrlMN - May 25, 2010 | 3:06 am · Link
@fucen tarmal: HOT! Nineties and muggy. Ugh. Glad you’re safe.
@Yutsano: Night, hon. Sleep well.
Wile E. Quixote - May 25, 2010 | 3:07 am · Link
@fucen tarmal:
Hmmm, do you think we’d have a better understanding of the phenomenon if we vivisected Rush? I know that some people might find that a bit drastic, but damnit! You can’t have a science omelette unless you’re willing to break a few science eggs! And don’t any of you sissies try to tell me that we could have the science omelette if we used a science egg substitute because that stuff is nasty.
Of course if we did this we wouldn’t be able to give him any analgesia. Doing so might affect the study, and since he’s an addict giving him painkillers could just lead him back into the downward spiral of addiction.
asiangrrlMN - May 25, 2010 | 3:11 am · Link
@Wile E. Quixote: I like the way you think, good sir!
Wile E. Quixote - May 25, 2010 | 3:15 am · Link
@Yutsano:
Does this mean that you don’t want to hear my speculations about how the scented candles are made from the waxy buildup harvested daily from between Limbaugh’s many folds of fat?
asiangrrlMN - May 25, 2010 | 3:20 am · Link
@Wile E. Quixote: Oh no you didn’t!
Chuck Butcher - May 25, 2010 | 4:24 am · Link
@Wile E. Quixote:
I don’t post those kind of meanders my mind takes, people might … well, commitment occurs.
I once looked into something and something looked back… shouldn’t have done that.
Lisa K. - May 25, 2010 | 6:44 am · Link
@Linda Featheringill:
The only guy we know who can spend a million bucks at Wal-Mart…
WereBear - May 25, 2010 | 7:36 am · Link
That’s poetry, that is.
J - May 25, 2010 | 8:17 am · Link
As I picture it, entering the Limbaugh Manse is like entering the compound of the South American dictator in the In Laws (that 70s movie of fond memory with Peter Falk and Alan Arkin). If only the life-size painting were in velvet!
pk - May 25, 2010 | 9:44 am · Link
This to me is one of life’s greatest mysteries. A man may look like a leprous gargoyle on the outside and be a soulless creep on the inside, but there will always be a woman willing to sleep with him.
Sheila - May 25, 2010 | 10:06 am · Link
It is fitting that Rush Limbaugh quotes Versailles in his home, as Versailles was built by a king who required his courtiers to wait outside while he performed his morning defecation, which they then admired and carried away in a precious vessel.
WereBear - May 25, 2010 | 10:21 am · Link
@Sheila: And the radio station analogy just writes itself.
canuckistani - May 25, 2010 | 10:42 am · Link
@carpeicthus:
At the risk of Godwinning, it made me think of Carinhall, late in the war, and it’s perfumed, drug-addled owner.
Jose Padilla - May 25, 2010 | 10:53 am · Link
Heard an NPR interview with Chafets this morning. The NPR guy gave Chafets a blow job, I guess in honor of the blow job Chafets gave Limbaugh. They spoke for a couple of minutes about how Limbaugh is “stone deaf” without once mentioning that this is because of his massive drug abuse. Amazing. i guess if you work in radio it’s a smart career move to be on the good side of Rush Limbaugh.
BC - May 25, 2010 | 11:11 am · Link
@Jose Padilla: Yeah, I had to turn the radio off when that interview came on.
Sheila - May 25, 2010 | 11:14 am · Link
@WereBear:
Absolutely, WereBear. Metaphors have much more intensity than direct statements (because they compress several ideas into a packet), even if the person using the metaphor, in this case Limbaugh, is totally unaware of it.
Mumphrey - May 25, 2010 | 11:42 am · Link
I know you’ll all think I’m nuts, and maybe I am, but I really feel sorry for Limbaugh. The guy’s clearly so fucked up, and I think all this loathesome shit he says and does is his way of trying to get through life somehow. I know he’s a turd, and a vile person, but still, I think he turned out tht way because of whatever’s wrong with him, and that’s what makes me feel sad for him. The worst part of it is that he doesn’t have to live that way, but I don’t think he’d ever do whatever he needs to do—what that might be I have no clue—to get better. He’s kind of tragic in a pitiful way.
Randy P - May 25, 2010 | 11:49 am · Link
@Warren Terra:
Sounds like he liked to eat though. But I’m impressed that he still apparently competed in jousting and hand-to-hand combat (according to the Daily Mail article) even with the big waistline. I’ve got to feel a little sorry for the horse under him in the joust though.
There’s also a description of him (unsuccessfully) pole-vaulting over a ditch while chasing a hawk.
Ash Can - May 25, 2010 | 11:50 am · Link
@Mumphrey: I don’t think that assessment is nuts at all; I agree that the guy’s pathetic. What’s worse, though, is that, in the manner of a super-slow-motion suicide bomber, he’s taking a goodly chunk of the nation out with him.
Mumphrey - May 25, 2010 | 12:03 pm · Link
@Ash Can:
Yes, that’s true. It would be so nice if he could just fester away off by himself. I can’t even begin to think of the freakout that will come when he has his last big heart attack and dies. Man, those drones will be lost. Somehow, I just don’t see Sean Hannity or Mark Levin, or even Glenn Beck, taking his place in their sad, drab, wretched lives.
Comrade Kevin - May 25, 2010 | 12:46 pm · Link
From the article:
WIN
jake the snake - May 25, 2010 | 1:22 pm · Link
The strange thing is that Limbaugh is not Nouveau Riche.
His family are longtime Country Club Republicans.
brantl - May 25, 2010 | 4:00 pm · Link
He’s just such a classless sack of shit, that the rednecks think that he’s “one of them”.
Anne Laurie - May 25, 2010 | 4:42 pm · Link
@jake the snake:
So were Dubya’s dear Bar ‘n Poppy. For that matter, the Sun King was the descendant of a certified saint noted for his piety & generosity to the poor. As with IQ, the heritability of “good taste” has been mooted but not proven.
Quaker in a Basement - May 25, 2010 | 5:57 pm · Link
My old roomie was a sports reporter back when RL was working for the KC Royals. Not surprisingly, RL was a laughingstock at media softball games.
xian - May 26, 2010 | 1:55 pm · Link
anyone else picturing Baron Harkonnen?