Wonkette
Someone sends RedState a photo of this unfunded, dinky thing, in Texas, and Erick Erickson writes, “We need that spirit in this country. We need the Spirit of Skidmore.” As tipster “Michael E.” writes, “An example of some garbage museum that the conservatives think should be the gold standard. ‘Welcome to the Smithsonian Institution, now without federal of state funding, open Sunday 3-5PM!!’” Indeed. It’s easy to maintain a museum when all it features is a bunch of old, rusty mechanical shit laying around the parking lot. [RedState]
Just look at how fantastic our private system is, and marvel in the results it provides.
It’s probably going to end up on the feds superfund clean up sites.
Why would you go to a museum of skidmarks?
So instead of being funded by Congressional Earmarks, it was funded by Skidmarks?
Please be quiet at all times in the museum to avoid waking the security guard.
…when all it features is a bunch of old, rusty mechanical shit laying around the parking lot.
Are you sure you’re not talking about a GM plant in Detroit?
Does “no state or federal funds” count the Social Security money used to buy the exhibits?
Plus, Redstate’s got the “Spirit of Skidmore” completely wrong. The “built without federal funding” thingy is like businesses calling themselves “not-for-profit”. It’s a disclaimer that says “look, we know we suck. It’s SUPPOSED to be like that.” The Spirit of Skidmore is justified mediocrity.
The national-level version of this would be “Look, Mississippi is SUPPOSED to be full of 350-pound ladies and 6 billion dogs. It’s a feature, dammit. Just shut up already!”
So it’s only open on the Lord’s day of rest? Why does RedState hate God?
Skidmore. Skid…more. Where to begin?
And it looks like the opening hours have been painted over a few times. Next take: “SUN. By appointment only, for 15 minutes, after church.”
Based on those photos, any shitkicker with a car up on blocks in his yard has a non-federally funded museum. It’s like a thousand points of light, only more like 100 million points of light.
Just makes me beam with pride–in what I’m not really sure–but beam on I shall.
Is the outhouse a museum facility, or is it an exhibit?
Suck it, Smithsonian. Today, we are all open Sunday, 3-5.
Zadig: Mississippi sounds like my kind of state!
nice paint job, citizens.
It’s not so much a “museum” as where the DPW parked its equipment the last time the place had enough money for road repairs.
Wow, this place is so lame, it’s not even listed at that wonderful compendium of bizarre attractions, http://www.roadsideamerica.com. And that’s saying something. Sponge-O-Rama RULES!!!
“Without benefit of state or federal funds.” Minus, of course, the $15.6 billion in anti-terrorism protection funds. We had two towers, people. We only have ONE museum of skidmarks.
TGY:”Please be quiet at all times in the museum to avoid waking the security guard.”
I’m sure the trustees would be thrilled if someone came along and stole all that junk.
And in the true collectivist/get-rich-quick spirit, RS commenter Kowalski offers:
“Friday, September 18th at 11:49AM EDT (link) I’m in the printing business. And I’m willing to make a nice new sign for the Skidmore Historical Society on adhesive vinyl or durable Tyvek with UV-durable ink and a nice, solid substrate and a plexiglass cover and I’ll do it at cost if we take up a collection. My estimate is less than $250, both sides.
And I’ll chip in the first $10.”
Dammit, if only they had supported the merits of exclusively private funding a few years ago, RedState might have been able to step in and save the now defunct Barbra Steisand Museum in the Castro.
If that’s what culture is like without federal funding, just imagine what the military would be like without federal funding!
Actually, we already know what that would be like. Just go to any gun show, Teabagger event or Sarah Palin rally. You’ll see.
Ahhh yes the “Spirit of Skidmore”, who the fuck writes that with a straight face? Oh, yeah, Erick Erikkkson, that’s who.
Why does Wonkette God hate us with constant RedState links?
Why do I get the feeling that this “museum” was incorporated specifically to get around a zoning ordinance enacted to prevent people from letting a bunch of broken down cars and farm machinery sit about in their front yards rusting?
You laugh, but wait til you see the Skidmore’s new wing dedicated to the post-expressionists.
V572625694: So, he’s asking for $, from each according to their ability, to give to Skidmark Historical according to its need?
norbizness: Because those all-seeing, huge blue eyes tend to pick up a lot of motes that need to be plucked out. Once plucked, she drops them here. Maybe it’s not fair, but that’s how it goes.
As for museum itself, I’m guessing the phrase “Weird-Looking Turnips” factors in somehow.
A bunch of old, rusty mechanical shit laying around the parking lot is pretty much the only thing a real US american would want to look at in a museum., ,you communists.
Erick the Red Erickson never fails to amuse.
Btw, someone here really needs to flesh out this wikipedia entry:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truck_Nutz
Joshua Norton: Four score and seven, asshole.
sezme: and punctuation nazis..
With a name like “Skidmore” what did you really expect?
3-5pm? So it opens an hour after megachurch is over, and immediately after taking a shit, and it closes just before the second half kickoff of the Cowboys game??
Sweet.
On a positive note, you never have to worry about the place getting shot up by deranged Skidmore history deniers.
Yes! The Red Staters have the answer! We can have good things and never pay taxes, because charitable types will always donate. And some lucky museums will be open 2 - 5pm Sundays.
From a New Yorker article I liked well enough to bookmark (about a writers’ program in a NYC church soup kitchen):
Republican Sen Jeff Sessions ‘volunteers’ at the soup kitchen whilst in town for the GOP convention:
Senator Sessions used the photo opportunity that resulted to praise the soup kitchen as the sort of private initiative that naturally takes up the tasks our government should not do and should not have to do—an opinion with which everybody at the soup kitchen disagreed.
The article, if you’ve got a good hour to kill. It’s the kind of article that you’ll only find in The New Yorker.
V572625694: so I will do the work for you, at a cost of 250 dollars, and I will chip in the first ten. Why didn’t he say “I will do it for 500 dollars, and chip in the first 260″? Sounds more impressive to me that way…but maybe my math is wrong.
Hmmm. Museums are a bit too homosexual for my tastes, sorry.
freakishlystrong:
Win.
dementor: aha! wonketterati on the case! a nefarious commie socialist plot is unmasked! good work, dementor!
So that’s where steam rollers go to die.
I’ve been to a small town Texas museum years ago. I can’t remember if it was socialist or John Galtian. It did have a jar with the picked heads of a two-headed calf. I wonder if Skidmore has anything like that?
but without health insurance, who can afford the tetanus shot that will ultimately be needed?
Taint the teabag conventions the spirit of skidmarks? Also?
So, no discount for Acorn card carrying commies?
What’s the slogan for the National Endowment for the Arts, again?
A Shit-stain of a Nation Deserves a Skidmore of a Museum.
dementor: “So, he’s asking for $, from each according to their ability, to give to Skidmark Historical according to its need?”
I must say, COMMENT OF THE DAY!
Good job mate. Hilarious.
Thank you all for another wonderful Friday afternoon at Wonkette.
Maintained without Federal or State Funds.
Newell didn’t post the link but I’m assuming he found the website like I did because of the “rusty, mechanical shit” remark. Anyways, the Google found me this link and…well…maybe not the greatest page ever constructed but FITTING!
http://www.beeville.net/SkidmoreHistoricalSocietyMuseum/
Now we know that Lascauxcaveman is David Remnick’s sock puppet — quit mag-whoring! (Kidding!)
Isn’t the “Spirit of Skidmore” the name of David Vitter’s yacht?
“Indeed. It’s easy to maintain a museum when all it features is a bunch of old, rusty mechanical shit laying around the parking lot.”
Actually, this is a pretty apt description of most of Texas.
Fucking awesome! The Louvre can only boast a few meager exhibits dedicated to Hatfield-McCoy era objets d’art. The Skidmore is proof beyond doubt that we live in the greatest country on Earth.
magic titty: During the annual Skidmore Pig Fucking Festival they stay open an extra hour.
You don’t how excited Ethel’s son Kenny (you know, the one that maintains the Skidmore Museum website?) is today with all these site hits. Pretty soon he’ll be moving out of the garage for good.
“Spirit of Skidmore”? Sounds like the name of a really sad soapbox derby car, kind of like the one from “The Little Rascals” that Spanky and Buckwheat drove. Must’ve been Eric’s inspiration.
Open a whole TWO fucking hours a week! Free Market rules!
On the other side of town is the Skidmore hospital, open Tuesday morning, 9:00 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. It is also exclusively privately funded.
Citizens needing healthcare at other times are directed to the landfill to die a quiet death.
PrairiePossum: mookworthjwilson: For obvious reasons, the hospital also has extra hours during the Pig Fucking Festival.
Thanks a lot, Wonkette. One of America’s last great undiscovered cultural destinations has now been revealed. I’m not even going to bother trying to book a spot in the Skidmore campground for patriots’ week.
What do they charge for admission?
PrairiePossum: Surely there are some helpful expired medicines at the landfill they can try before kicking the bucket.
Monsieur Grumpe: It’s the free market so probably about eighty bucks a head with a $10 service charge from Ticketmaster.
Monsieur Grumpe: Admission is free, but the moonpies at the snack bar will set you back $3.25. RIP-OFF.
The tea people lurve this museum … up until the time they all visit on the same day. Then they will decry it for being overcrowded and lacking everything they need to sustain their “lifestyles” (e.g. low-priced fried-food concessions, free bathrooms, and adequate parking for their megavehicles). Then they will proclaim the owner to be a communist and go home as soon as they’ve ruined his property.
Skidmore Texas, The Lone Star States’ Scrapyard! Featuring the museum of stuff too big to cart away on a pickup truck (even though they tried real hard to) and several busted glass bottles from the home of the town founder’s privy/home on display. And an original manuscript of Ethel Skidmore’s “Ode to Joseph McCarthy” long form poem, read annually by her son Kenny.
my grandpa’s yard is a FUCKING MUSEUM???
Kev-O-Tron: Who would look at that scattered trash and consider it a “museum”? If that’s a museum, then the outskirts of every piece of shit town in the mid-west are holy fucking ground. Let’s cash in on this motherfucker!
Rotundo: A touching story, that. The town really rallies around Kenny in spite of (due to?) being born with his brother/cousin/father’s cleft pallette, club-foot, congenital shingles, and third testicle. The tragedy is that there won’t be a Kenny Jr to pass on the readings to, as the one trait not passed on was viable sperm. Doesn’t stop the plucky, blank-eyed chap from winning the Blue Ribbon at the Pig Fucking Festival every year, tough.
Larry McAwful: I got a fundraising letter yesterday from the American Friends Service Committee. The US spends $1,950,000 per minute on national defense.
The right wingnutz claim our military is underfunded? Perhaps it is a priority issue and not an overall spend-everything-we-have issue.
Ten bucks says they have an ostrich egg. In every little museum in every town and hamlet in America, up on the second floor, in that dusty case over in the corner, rests an ostrich egg.
Apparently it’s the law. Or something.
Kev-O-Tron: Is that literally the last page on the internet?
I call bullshit. Nobody from Redstate (or any red state for that matter) goes to museums.
Kenneth the NBC Governor: Ah, but they do go to “roadside attractions” in the middle of buttfuck nowhere.
Snarkalicious: WIN1!!1!!!ONE!! You are truly a snark master o wise one!
So that’s where they put Grampy’s equipment after they hauled him off to the death panels.
theo: Kev-O-Tron: That “outhouse” is the “Skidmore Calaboose”, aka jail. So they probably also have a nice assortment of torture implements on display as well.
There was no Skidmore, its a myth.
Snarkalicious: Very nice, but one minor disagreement. Those “Kennys” you describe always have viable sperm. How else do you explain the existence of so many teabaggers?
Why does Skidmore hate The Lord’s Day?
The teabaggers should have used the DC transportation system that isn’t federally funded- their feet or taxi cabs but we know they are fat lazy and cheap
Well, if they put as much money into their exhibits as they do their sign, this is probably the path to the future.
And, hell, we finally know what Conservative health care would look like.
ChernobylSoup v2: Jebus is ‘love’?
The museum used to be an ACORN Office, last week.
This is EXACTLY why I encourage red staters to GO GALT. Their one doctor will probably be available during the same hours as this museum, and you’ll have a line-up of goitered assfucks waiting for help. It’ll be like they’ve been raptured, only instead of disappearing, they’ll just die on their poorly maintained sidewalks.
I guess this makes the entire state of Mississippi a museum. Lots of rusting crap layin’ by the side of the road there.
Cape Clod: The hidden link at the bottom leads to the Final Boss of the Internet.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTjr_oCo6uU
What self-respecting Texan would be caught dead in a museum ANYWHERE or ANYTIME ?? Jokes on you snobby libruls!
According to http://www.beeville.net/Historic181/, the museum is run by a Ms. Dubois, who has always depended on the kindness of strangers.
The (state-funded) historical marker in front of the Museum proudly informs us who built the first big fence made of pine planks in the county, and who won fame for building the first barbed wire fence in the county, but it neglects to tell us who built that chain link fence protecting the valuable deposits of iron oxide on the lawn.
Lionel Hutz Esq.: Imagine the showplace that the restroom facilities must be! A feast for, nay, an orgy for the senses! (2, 5 gallon plastic pails, 1, 1 gallon former ice cream bucket, labeled MENS WOMENSES and CRIPPLE respectively)
I thought it was fascinating how they managed to keep the butter churn exhibit free of socializm.
But DIA Beacon is also full of rusty conceptual art. Just sayin’
I got roped into a tourist trap ‘museum’ in Budapest once that had more science than this. In clay they had a dinosaur footprint impression right next to the impression of a computer keyboard. It proves Jeebus created the world 30 years ago and Adam & Eve live among us. But Adam & Adam never existed, EVER
An American in Toronto: Whoever it is, they’ve got a website of their own, too. They do websites with forms, people! Your website will just scream “1994″ to visitors.
Ha ha, someone took that pirated copy of Macromedia Dreamweaver 8.0 and never looked back. Apparently on the Internet, no one has to know it’s just you, your computer, and your double-wide. Or maybe it’s Queen Victoria.
Skid over, Smithsonian!
GreatOldOnesParty: I thought this subject was off limits but here He is in an alternative form. http://i256.photobucket.com/albums/hh168/InspectorxGadget/FINALBOSS.jpg
I am stunned the atmosphere in Skidmore rots paint and steel in a matter of a few months or, coincidentally, since Obama took office.
Or could it be quotes like this, “Stop taxing us so much so we can afford to make a nicer sign and clean up the yard.”, ought not be stenciled on any signs for at least another seven and a half years.