Wednesday, September 5, 2012

The Seamy Story of Karl Rove and Ali Akbar Generates a Video for the Ages


Our friends at The Liberal Grouch blog have taken an ugly story--the reported gay affair between Karl Rove and GOP operative Ali Akbar--and turned it into a video that had me doubled over with laughter on the first viewing. In fact, it might be the funniest thing to hit YouTube since a talking dog named Clark Griswold started asking his owner about maple-flavored bacon.

I played a small role in bringing the video to life, so maybe I'm not the most objective observer. But I feel safe in saying that if you have Germanic roots, possess a healthy hatred for Karl Rove, or both, you are likely to find this a genuine hoot.

It all started yesterday morning when I checked my blog statistics and noticed a visitor to Legal Schnauzer from someone at Holtzbrinck Publishing in New York. They arrived at my blog by conducting keyword searches on "Karl Rove gay" and "Rove's lover is Ali Akbar." It seemed something potentially juicy was going on, and I wasn't about to let it slip unnoticed.

My first thought was, "Who in the heck is Holtzbrinck Publishing?" I had never heard of them, so I was amazed to discover, via a Google search, that this is a big-time outfit. The Georg Von Holtzbrinck Publishing Group, it turns out, is based in Stuttgart, Germany, and has published works by Ernest Hemingway, John Updike, Agatha Christie and other literary heavyweights. It also publishes international magazines, such as Nature and Scientific American, and now owns Macmillan Publishers.

As a veteran of 30-plus years in journalism, I should know a thing or two about the publishing business. But Holtzbrinck was a new name to me. I overcame my shame long enough to send an e-mail to a couple of friends about the curious visitor to my blog. One of those friends was Bill Schmalfeldt, aka "The Liberal Grouch."

Bill replied and asked if he could use the information for a post on his blog. I said, "Sure, why not?" having no idea how he would treat it. He gave the story a wicked comic twist in a post you can read here.  But the real highlight comes in a video that still has me chuckling--and you can view it at the end of this post. The "Liberal Grouch," it seems, is not all that grouchy. In fact, he seemed to be having loads of fun at the expense of Rove and Akbar. Liberals need to do more of that kind of stuff.

As for me, I have no idea who was viewing my blog at Holtzbrinck Publishing. It might have been the CEO; it might have been a janitor with too much time on his hands. When the person first appeared on my blog stats, the visit was for a little more than five minutes. By the time, I noticed them again in the afternoon, the visit time was for more than four hours. I sent an update to The Liberal Grouch, and he responded with a new post titled "Someone Is Really, REALLY Interested in Al Akbar and Karl Rove."

Before I start drowning in my own self importance, it's only fair to point out that my blog stats do not prove that someone at Holtzbrinck was reading Legal Schnauzer for a full four hours. It's possible that someone discovered my blog, read for a while, and then left it on the screen for much of the day while doing other things. But this is my blog, and I am self important, so we are going to assume it was the CEO or a high-level editor who was reading my posts the entire time--enraptured by every word.

That leads to this obvious question: Is someone floating a book proposal about Karl Rove and Ali Akbar--and is Holtzbrinck interested enough to be researching the subject?

Of course, we also have this question: Did a supply clerk at Holtzbrinck hear about the Rove/Akbar affair and decide to while away the hours on a slow work day, the Tuesday after Labor Day, by perusing a strange blog in far-off Alabama?

I like the first scenario better, so that's what we'll go with.

Even if a book never comes from yesterday's events, we will always have the Grouch's classic video. For a guy named Schmalfeldt, working on a tip from a guy named Shuler (who has a blog devoted to the memory of a miniature schnauzer), it seems only fitting that a Germany-based publisher inspired this slice of comic genius. Enjoy!



10 comments:

  1. Congratulations Legal Schnauzer on sniffing out Karl Rove's sexual escapades....as for Liberal Grouch's video I haven't enjoyed anything so much since I took a small dog to Karl's front lawn at Rosemary Beach to take a dump.......

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  2. Ugly story? That two disparate souls should find love, even for a short time? I think it is a bee-yoooo-tee-ful story. As the proud parent and uncle of gay children, I delight at the idea of Karl Rove (urp!) and the lovely Ali Akbar (gag!) making the double-backed beast together.

    My problem with Akbar and Rove, as I am sure is yours as well, Herr Shuler (Learn to spell yer g.d. name... SCHULER!) is the blatant HYPOCRISY of being a gay basher like Rove who is determined to keep our gay brothers and sisters either in the closet or encoded by Constitutional Law as Second Class Citizens, while paying Akbar to (gulp!) put on a Barack Obama mask and (choke!) wave $20 bills in his face while Rove takes pictures from (heave!) somewhere around Akbar's lower belt level.

    So, my friend, I am sure you join me in CELEBRATING true, good, gay love, while wondering what it is that keeps craven cowards like Rove and Ali in the closet when "OUT" is SO much nicer!

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  3. Good points, Mr. Grouch. And thanks again for a splendid video. The Karl/Ali "love story" certainly proved to be an inspiration for you.

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  4. I'm dying to know the title of the background music in the video. Every time I hear it, I get an overwhelming desire to eat a bratwurst, down a beer (or two), and drive a Volkswagen on the Autobahn.

    Those Germans know how to get stuff done, man.

    My hat is off to LGrouch.

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  5. Liberal Grouch, first I want to say to you, as an artist myself, good work. In fact, the work is quite remarkable for the technology "arts," and therefore, a work of genius for the eyes to see how it looks, "in the closet?"

    I have only one problem with the gay pride ideology, and it is, when I lived in Thailand, 1960s, gay was indeed there from London and other areas of the planet.

    I, from Pacific Lutheran University and raised very strict in my life, GERMANIC after a fashion, MISSOURI SYNOD LUTHERAN, before that, "Catholic."

    Open minded, 18-19, after reading the B-I-B-L-E since age 5? After a fashion, having studied the ARTS which are anything BUT "in a closet." Since age 3-now, the world has not been other than "global," with ALL ideas and ideologies, visual, audio, sensual, "Blue Movies" in Thailand, 1968, et Cetera.

    PORN IN AMERICA? HA HA HA HA HA

    Thailand in 1968, well get over the idea the U.S. has figured out what the C-I-A DID TOO, to many like poor Rove?

    "Homosexuality" is not a new phenomenon. There is an ingredient, however, that rarely gets spoken about EXCEPT at the "FLOP OBAMA, GLOBAL WARMING."

    The people in the coldest countries discovered in the "nappies," the "PLASTIC DIAPERS," were and are "chemicals," TO WIT the boys in those countries, many, haven't a clue as to whether male or female. Homosexuality? Nah, that already is past tense, going for the NO gender rule.

    THE VIDEO DOUBLED ME OVER LAUGHING, THANK YOU.

    Roberta Kelly aka Biloxi Marx

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  6. Karl Rove GAY!!

    (and those puckered lips of rove at the beginning of the video)

    I'm SURE dubya is disappointed at Karl's sensitive nature.

    I'm still laughing.

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  7. Tell me LS, as an old sportswriter, does the fact that a recently remarried Karl Rove having and affair "gay after" with a man make him a switch hitter?

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  8. Hah, hah.

    Yes, definitely looks like "Turd Blossom" is a switch hitter--although I'm starting to think he actually "swings" from the left side of the plate more than he would have us believe.

    I'm thinking his "conservative swings," from the right side of the plate, are mostly for show.

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  9. four clicks from wiki.,studivz-,technorati-,Dave Sifry,nationalcybercrime training partnership. also,a LOT to do with the blogisphere,and a suit with facebook.,keep in mind the german and bush relationship in the past.v

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  10. I knew Rove was gay when I heard him go on and on about how impressed he was when he first met GW. It was the chatter of one in love. I remember a priest who was elderly, ill and in a wheelchair and never had anything good to say to anyone. I watched as a handsome young man, well built and in shorts passed the priest in his wheelchair. His head snapped up and he said, 'What a handsome figure of a man!'. I am convinced republicans are very angry and repressed people.

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