Some Stranger in San Francisco Now Has Tucker Carlson’s Cell-Phone Number

Also, the personal numbers of Tom Wolfe, Bob Barr and Hunter S. Thompson’s widow, Anita, which were in the phone I accidentally left in the SF international airport Saturday during a long layover en route home from California. So if any of my good friends receive harassing phone calls in the next few days, please contact the FBI. Speaking of my good friends:

• The Daily Caller has finally launched and, at least at first glance, does not suck.
• Tucker Carlson, while no doubt busy fending off obscene phone calls from airport janitors, writes a letter introducing his new product to the waiting world.
• Of all the things Carlson has done with the Daily Caller, the one move for which he unquestionably deserves praise is hiring Jim Treacher — a process Treacher describes in interesting detail. (Feel free to translate “interesting” loosely as, “Tempting me to break my no-slagging vow.”)
• Little Miss Attila likewise welcomes The Daily Jim Treacher. Attila seems to have made a special effort to avoid me during my West Coast sojourn, and also avoided linking me in yesterday’s Harry Reid racism round-up. Should I be paranoid? At 4 a.m. on my ninth cup of coffee for the day, paranoia comes easy, but if I’m being betrayed by Attila, my brutal retaliation will have to wait until I recover from jet-lag and the loss of my cell phone.
• That magnificent bastard Dan Collins refers to my California trip as “slaves laboriously chiselling blocks on the ground.” And yes, this means Dan is practically inviting Charles Johnson to denounce him as “pro-slavery.”
• Arianna Huffington has never been a friend of mine, nor will she ever, as I would never voluntarily associate with someone stupid enough to write crap like this: “Anyone looking at today’s political landscape with clear eyes can see that on issue after issue . . . the binary division of the debate into right vs. left obscures more than it reveals.” Shut your piehole, you vacuous Greek subversive. If it were up to me, you’d be deported along with dopehead foreigner Andrew Sullivan.
• Unlike certain other online ventures recently mentioned, No Sheeples Here just bought a month’s run of advertising at The Other McCain. Carol’s illustrations are one of the great joys of the conservative blogosphere, and she sometimes does work on request. Perhaps she’ll soon favor us with a humorous depiction of Tucker Carlson and an annoyed sheep. IYKWIMAITYD.
• Carol also grants me a Gonzo Award for the Pasadena trip, and I hope Anita Thompson won’t mind. “Sincerest form of flattery,” etc. My admiration for Thompson’s work actually preceded any notion I ever had of becoming a journalist myself. When I read Thompson’s original gonzo story, “The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved,” in 1979, I was still planning to become rich and famous as a rock star. Two years and one drug-induced freakout later, my friend Lynn Vincent recruited me to the staff of JSU’s campus newspaper, thereby ensuring that I would die in poverty and obscurity.
• Speaking of poverty, thanks to all my good friends who hit the tip-jar to fund Fear and Loathing in Pasadena. As I mentioned Saturday, I am now seeking funds to go cover the Scott Brown Senate campaign in Massachusetts. Da Tech Guy has offered me sofa-crashing privileges, and Eddie in Missouri has already pitched in $20 for the Shoe Leather Fund. I’m not sure how much it will take to get me up there, but I need two new tires on the car ($75 x 2 = $150) and I’ve nearly finished that carton of Parliament Lights ($50 in Virginia) I bought for the California trip. Plus I figure at least $100 to buy a temporary replacement for the lost cell phone with enough minutes to get me through next week’s election. Every $5 or $10 helps, of course, but if anybody wants to hit the tip jar with $3,000,000 in venture capital, that would be acceptable.

Finally, one of the several sofas I crashed during the California trip was at the Burbank home of Valley of the Shadow who compares me to the Bill Murray version of Hunter S. Thompson in Where The Buffalo Roam:

Mock him at your peril. Driving from Costa Mesa to Griffith Park by way of the Sepulveda pass, I saw Smitty and RS write a post on the road. . . .

Actually, JSF didn’t see Smitty, except perhaps in one of those weird hallucinatory dreams. (Most of my dreams like that involve Natalie Portman, and/or Christina Hendricks, but if  JSF’s dreaming about Smitty . . . well, NTTAWWT.) What JSF actually saw was me dictating a blog post about the Crimson Tide’s homeward departure, after a technical glitch trashed most of what I’d written at a Starbucks in Costa Mesa.

JSF is a wonderful guy who, like 95 percent of America, drives too damned slow. This didn’t bother me much except Friday afternoon when we were trying to get down to Costa Mesa and then back up to Griffith Park before sundown. Being born with the hillbilly NASCAR gene, my natural tendency is to drive like Bo Duke with Enos and Boss Hogg in hot pursuit.

Chris Cassone had invited me for dinner at his girlfriend’s home in the Hollywood hills, and the thought of being trapped in L.A.’s notorious rush-hour gridlock was heavy on my mind as the clock ticked close to 4 p.m. in Costa Mesa and I finally abandoned any hope of finishing that blog post at Starbucks. As we left Orange County, I expected JSF to be driving the way I’d be driving under those circumstances — namely, with a desperate and reckless haste. Not to perpetuate any stereotypes, but the neutral objective facts are that (a) JSF is originally from Manhattan, and (b) no Manhattan native has ever won at Talladega.

Despite his genetic deficiencies in automotive prowess, JSF managed to improvise a relatively gridlock-free route via the 410 and various surface streets so that we crossed pass on Sepulvada Boulevard and thus made it from Costa Mesa to Griffith Park in less than three hours. Not bad for a non-hillbilly, so you should visit Valley of the Shadow blog and remember JSF in your prayers.

As for me, I’m doing OK in the prayer department — Mrs. Other McCain prays enough for both of us — and mainly need you to hit the tip jar so I can get up to Massachusetts this week.