Saint Coco once observed: “Luxury is not the opposite of poverty. It is the opposite of vulgarity.” Had Miss Chanel stuck around to witness recent town hall meetings in America, she would have emphatically concluded that this country is in desperate need of some luxury. Code Bleu! Honestly, such a shocking parade of nasty, angry, vulgar people! The very people who not only didn’t mind, but cheered, when our big government got even bigger by slapping several trillion dollars on a Chinese VISA card, all for a vanity war, are now seething over spending a fraction of that amount on the frivolity of keeping Americans alive.
Apparently, after consulting Jesus (“What would you do, say, if you thought all your own socialistic teachings were garbage, Lord?”), they realized it is more important to spend money we don’t have to keep foreigners dead than to keep Americans alive. Now, it’s not for me to question what Jesus told them because, well frankly, He says a lot of things, much of which He doesn’t even mean (one hopes), but I do know that He never told them dress like that! In any event, an exasperated Jesus doodled the following graphic after several days of apoplectic prayers from His agitated, vulgar flock:
Do you recall the anal retentive pest who walked along the beach with Jesus?After he inventoried the footprints left by the two, he pelted Jesus with pesky questions about why there ended up only being one set of footprints.
One night, a filthy drunk had a dream,
He dreamed he was walking along the beach with the LORD after spending the evening together at a cheap motel.
Across the sky, flashed lurid scenes from the man’s tedious life. Jesus yawned, took a long drag from His menthol cigarette and spat into the sand.
For each scene the now naked redneck noticed two sets of footprints in the sand,
One belonging to him and the other to his lovely date, the LORD.
When the last scene flashed before him, he looked back at the footprints in the sand.
He noticed that there were only one set of footprints, left by very expensive Italian sandals he didn’t own.
He also noticed that it happened to be at the very lowest and saddest time in his pathetic, needy, miserable life.
This really pissed him off
So he put down his Jack Daniels, stuck his hairy index finger in Jesus’ shoulder and questioned the LORD about it.
“LORD, you said once I decided to follow You, we’d be like homos and You’d walk with me all the way.
But I have noticed that during the most troublesome time in my life, there is only ONE set of footprints.
I don’t understand why when I needed You the most You would leave me. Why LORD? WHY? Tell me NOW! Or I’m fixing to break this here bottle over a rock and come after you with it!”
The LORD replied:
“Stop asking me so many [UNCHRISTIAN WORD]ing questions!”
And that’s when the couple from Ontario, on the balcony of their timeshare, heard an enthusiastic volley of gunfire.
Yesterday, Jesus and I attended a performance of the dramatic sensation that is sweeping the nation: a theater-in-the-unfound production of “Healthscare!“ It’s a boisterous Republican-produced melodrama, currently in out-of-town tryouts, being performed at town hall meetings throughout America. As a parade of amateur actors dutifully recited their tortuous lines of sputtering outrage, performed as a geek chorus, more frenzied chants than coherent dialogue, I nudged my nodding-off Savior and muttered: “Honestly, if I’m going to be amused by such scenery chewing pathos, I’d rather see a sobbing Glenn Beck as Medea!”
During the tediously long review, choreographed crazies erupted on cue every time a politician opens his mouth to talk about healthcare. The dialogue and delivery were so over-wrought and under-thought, before the 67th encore, Jesus and I were reaching for our souvenir talking-points program and jealously eying the exits. Frankly, any corybantic catfight on The Real Housewives of Atlanta has more authenticity — and dignity — than the snarling cue card recitations of the Healthcare Industry Players. And it’s not as if Jesus is put off by a little psychotic hysteria. As you will recall, He was recently the first person since 1985 to say “no” to Michael Jackson.
But, speaking of entertainment that has passed its “BEST BY” date, when did American political drama’s plots become so predictable, its scripts so sloppy? You will be able to predict every word that every character says once the first apoplectic actor has delivered his first angry monologue, so given to simple-minded repetition is the playwright. According to the monotonous script, every single character hates every single word President Obama says, a dull contrivance that leeches every bit of dramatic suspense from each line, making for a rather dull afternoon of theater! And any hope for a better second act is quickly deflated once you realized that the cast will also hate every single thing the President says in every subsequent scene, no matter what it is he actually winds up saying.
Politics has always been theater. But when did its production values slide so precipitously into a self-indulgent, repetitive chorus that only skirts banality by hinting at insanity? Since our last socialist president, FDR, our ovations have drifted from civic acts to circus acts. When did we go from a president who pretends he can stand to a citizenry that pretends it can’t stand anything?
Now, don’t get us wrong: As American Christians, Jesus and I both believe that when a child gets healthcare, an angel loses its virginity — or, worse, its concealed weapon. Redirecting dollars from arming bombs to vaccinating arms is clearly the work of a wicked, hateful Socialist Satan! (Or is that a Fascist Fallen Angel? Honestly, as Republicans, we don’t get all liberal-elite, fact-obsessed when it comes to what pejorative labels for unfashionable ideologies really mean!)
Nevertheless, this Republican road show of rage, with its cheap set, set script and unsettling cast, needs to close out of town before it reaches that big burlesque theater on Capitol Hill. After all, rednecks who hanker to become unglued in public so that rich people can make even more money off them will always have Dr. Phil! But this tedious traveling show has all the spontaneity of a Tom Cruise remark, the sincerity of a Bachelor or Bachelorette proposal and the restraint of a community theater production of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? And just as with community theater, in this vanity production, it seems as if the only people having fun are the screaming hams hogging the stage.
Let’s think . . . a fascist misrepresenting her background, spouting lies and nonsense while being repackaged for the benefit of the little people? Who does that remind you of? Oh, I know! I think it’s time for an updated production of Evita! It helps if you picture a chorus of self-conscious, pasty males in Brooks Brothers suits and felt elephant trunk baseball caps.
Unretouched photo of John McCain at the end of last night’s debate, apparently possessed by demons!
Last night, we saw what happens when you have perpetually peeved fans given to screaming insults and slander. And, no, I’m not talking about the fools who paid money to see Janet Jackson lip-synch, only to find out at the last minute Miss Jackson went on a nasty bender and cancelled the concert. Well, on second thought, maybe she had the right idea. In sad contrast, John McCain would have been wise to cancel, too. Instead, he went on his nasty bender on air!
Under increasing goading from his bloodthirsty and increasingly frenzied “base,” McCain was determined to go on the attack. He played offense, but it played out as offensive. That is because it is dangerous for McCain to tap into his reservoirs of sarcastic anger. That unreserved reserve may be as flammable as our nation’s natural gas, but McCain’s reserves don’t appear to be finite. If only we had the technology to tap this angry energy, we could go back to driving Hummers!
By most accounts, McCain is a nasty piece of work, short tempered, rude and, more than his poseur “pit bull” running mate, close enough to the genuine article that any lipstick would go unnoticed. With his split-screen snarls, he may have thrown some red meat to the his base, clamoring for insults and rudeness. But the problem with acting like those people is that they scare most Americans.
What Would Joethe Plumber Do?
Let’s be honest, the smarmy, canned, patronizing references to “Joe the Plumber” were just irritating. But nevertheless rather telling. Notice how McCain sarcastically sneered, “Congratulations, Joe, you’re rich!”? McCain’s mocking was rooted in a big-time gigolo’s distain for the notion that anyone making $250,000 could be thought of as “rich.” Most Americans might feel otherwise. But, then again, they don’t spend that amount annually on servants, as do John and his android wife. What’s funny is that someone can gain notoriety as “Joe the Plumber” when he isn’t even a licensed plumber. But he is, however, skinhead enough to make a “tap dances like Sammy Davis, Jr.” remark about Barrack Obama. Oh, dear. No wonder McCain plucked Joe out from all of America for some unseemly pandering! Joe sounds like John’s base!
For all of John McCain’s and Sarah Palin’s schoolyard taunts, swagger and self-professed gutsy ability to take on the Big Boys in Washington, there is one thing that scares them more than facts: a microphone. The campaign rigorously keeps Palin in a perpetually coddled state of silent smiles. Her handlers treat anything with a question mark like it might a sniper, tacitly acknowledging that the more she says, the less people are going to like her or think the is competent. Yes, the snarky moose-killer, afraid of anything that can fire back, is petrified at the thought of getting a question that might shatter, not the glass ceiling, but the brittle mirage that currently colludes to create her image. Honestly, if all pit bulls were this meek, cowering in the corner lest a feisty toy poodle cross its path, they’d be a lot more popular outside of the Michael Vick set.
Now comes news that her Profession War-Hero™ running mate is trembling over a few questions, too. After a week of inopportune financial news, and falling poll numbers, John McCain is cowering behind his podium, waving a white flag that he keeps telling everyone is actually star-spangled. He is claiming that he is too afraid, ur, concerned to debate this week. You see, there is just isn’t time. No, he can make time for a silent photo op, but not the American people.
McCain claims that fixing the current financial crisis is more important than the election. But what he is really afraid of is that the election is about fixing this financial crisis. Tellingly, “McCain took no questions after reading his statement.” Honestly, if our own party’s candidates can be sent running by the prospect of a few “why?”s, Iran should just dismantle its nuclear facilities and pool the money to buy a camcorder!
GOP groupie Peggy Noonan was accidentally recorded this afternoon rather indelicately referring to the nomination of Sarah “Failin’” Palin as “political bull[UNCHRISTIAN WORD]” and decreeing, like a peeved, political Anna Wintour, that the race is, “Over!”
My goodness, it is always novel – and wonderfully embarrassing — when people paid to give their opinions are caught actually giving them! I don’t know what is more surprising coming from Peggy: the salty language or refreshing honesty.
Former John McCain adviser and Time columnist Mike Murphy agreed with the saucy boozehound, calling McCain’s decision “cynical” and “gimmicky.” But what I found most interesting about the exchange was Peggy saying this:
“The most qualified? No. I think they went for this, excuse me, political bull[UNCHRISTIAN WORD] about narratives. Every time the Republicans do that, because that’s not where they live and that’s not what they’re good at, they blow it.”
Sounds like a shockingly candid acknowledgment that the GOP is not the party of the people and comes across as completely phony when it pretends to have anything in common with the unrich and their amusing little life stories.
