I Did Not Have Sexual Relations with That Man, Dept.

Former church member: Haggard performed sex act - Yahoo! News

"Former Church Member: Haggard Performed Sex Act

A young man who formerly attended New Life Church says that then-pastor Ted Haggard performed a sex act in front of him in a hotel room in 2006 and sent him explicit text messages...In a statement earlier Monday, Haggard apologized for his 'inappropriate relationship' with the former church volunteer, but said it did not involve physical contact."


Oh, Ted, you Wile E. Coyote! Getting all Clintonian on us this late in the game. You acted "inappropriately" but said inappropriateness did not involve "physical contact" because you...what? jerked off in front of this fellow? performed an act of auto-fellatio? employed a butternut squash as a dildo? What, Ted, what?!

And "explicit text messages." Yes, because those have never come back to bite any public figure in the ass. Please share them with us, do. Were they all KJV-Biblical in tone? Did you offer to smite his buttocks with the righteous staff of your loins? Or were they skeevy sticky manporn? Did you at any point employ the phrase "hot stallion load" in describing the fruit of your efforts?

Oh, Ted! Splitting hairs and weaselwording isn't going to get you back into the pulpit and into the hearts of so very many gullible gomers! You have to abase yourself, indulge in a public act of self-flagellation, streak your pancake with hot tears and beg to be forgiven by that very same omnipotent and omniscient God you treat like an ATM at a convenience store.

But do give us the spicy-yet-degrading-yet-fascinating-yet-appalling details yourself. Have you forgotten, Ted? It's Schadenfreude Tuesday, and baby needs new shoes.

Parting Is Such Sweet Sweetness, Dept.



"Grrr...how can I ruin that young idiot, George Bailey...?"


Oh, Dick, it's won't be the same not having a soulless, charmless ideologue-cum-chickenhawk-cum-defense industry incubus running the shadow government from an office by Charon's ticket booth, but, really, from the heart: fuck you. All the way back to Pottersville.

Our long national nightmare is over.

Leather Pants: The New Cloth Coat, Dept.

A very few thoughts regarding yesterday's Obama concert on the National Mall:

1) GOD, Republicans must be hating this. I mean, like, imagine you walk into your bedroom, and some guy is banging your wife, and, instead of shooting him, you have to stand there and hear your wife, your kids, your neighbors and your family tell you how he's so much better for her than, you know, YOU.

2) Bruce was great, Mellencamp was great, Garth Brooks was great. And, for some reason, it had to do--at least in part--with the fact that they were each fronting a choir. I'm not normally a fan of the choir backdrop--particularly that wall o' gospel calculated to signify "grits'n'gravy/chicken'n'waffles" for European-American Singers--because it tends to be used to take songs to church that would be better taken to the in-store sound system at the Wal-Mart in West Hell. But the setting supported the big emotions, which, except for Joe Biden's flame-out on labor--I half expected him to break out into "I Dreamed I Saw Joe Hill Last Night" like Joan Baez in horrible drag--were expressed in a restrained and in no way Billy-"White Shoes"-Johnson-in-the-end-zone mood. I particularly loved seeing the Gay Men's Chorus of Washington behind Josh Groban and Heather Headley's "My Country 'Tis of Thee." Fuck YOU, McCain/Palin '08 in your entirety. I am not so admirably restrained and will do the Funky Chicken in your face.

3) Please, someone, ANYone: explain to me how will.i.am has a career in music.

4) "Sylvia's Mother" is an amazing song. For different reasons, at different times. And not even always amazing-good. Nothing to do with yesterday or Obama, really. It just is.

5) Garth Brooks and Ashley Judd are the only country personalities, outside the Dixie Chiclets, who'll show their face at a Dem event. I think the progressive movement needs to embrace and seduce Nashville. Because I think we know where

"I watch CNN but I'm not sure I can tell you
The difference in Iraq and Iran
But I know Jesus and I talk to God"

got us.

6) Bettye Lavette. I slept on I've Got My Own Hell to Raise, but, after this performance and the one at the Kennedy Center Honors, I've got to own as much of this woman's oeuvre as I can afford. And I want to hear her sing "Black Coffee." Oh, and here's whom she doesn't need for a duet partner: Jon "Exit 13A" Bon Jovi. What, was Donny Osmond booked? Christ. Shifting from her to him in a duet is like you're enjoying a plate of boeuf bourguignon and, then, suddenly biting into a ball of aluminum foil.

7) Leon Russell's Carney is a great album. Again, nothing to do with yesterday or Obama. It just is.

8) Have I mentioned that I can't wait for Renée Fleming on Spectacle: Elvis Costello with... (and let me just say, yeah, I get the title--"spectacles," like Elvis' specs and like an elaborate show; that doesn't mean it isn't a crap title)? She did "You'll Never Walk Alone"--and it's so tainted by Jerry Lewis that I can't ever conceive of the song without him, bowtie undone, brilliantine helmet wilted, an hour left in the telethon broadcast, WILLING you to give him that last sawbuck--and I loved hearing it.

His Mother Would Be So Proud, Dept.

Britain's Prince Harry apologises for racist language - Yahoo! News:

"Britain's Prince Harry apologises for racist language

Britain's Prince Harry apologised for any offence caused after a self-filmed video was released showing him calling an army colleague a 'Paki' and telling another he looked like a 'raghead'.

The video, obtained by the News of the World weekly, plunges the 24-year-old army lieutenant, third in line to the throne, into fresh controversy four years after he sparked an outcry by wearing a Nazi swastika at a fancy dress party."

Ah, that's the fellow! "Paki" this and "raghead" that. Not to mention that colorful incident with the Nazi costume. Oh ho ho but that Prince Harry is a scamp! You should hear what he has to say about "nigger" colonials and "wog" takeaways, not to mention the "kike" bankers who really control everything, you know...it was all in this cunning little book he half-read, the "Protocols of the Elders" or somesuch. Brilliant stuff; all true, y'know, his granddad told him so.

Rule Brittania and all that. Britons never will be slaves. Just treat other people as if they were. Jolly good. Carry on.

Velvet Gloves and Shit, Dept.

Israeli leader warns Hamas of 'iron fist' - Yahoo! News: "Israeli leader warns Hamas of 'iron fist'"

You know what I like? When my irony alarm rings so loud, it wakes people in Alabama.

Nothing like an Israeli PM using a term associated with Prussian leader Otto von Bismarck, a professed anti-Semite and self-interested promoter of German anti-Semitism.

*ha ha!* You wacky Israelis! Now, you get to be the oppressors! How do those big-ass boots feel? Good, huh? For a people who have reified the lemma "never forget," y'all sure have forgotten what it feels like to be treated like shit by a militarily superior power that doesn't really consider you much more than the unsightly blotch of skin and blood a flattened human being leaves on a bombarded sidewalk.

Should I quote that Pogo bit about meeting the enemy and he is us? Nah, I'll save it for some time when my irony alarm isn't giving me a headache.

Dude, Where's My Cherry?, Dept.

found_objects: The Recently Deflowered Girl

Linking to a brilliantly brilliant Edward Gorey creation, The Recently Deflowered Girl. Handy etiquette tips for Young Women who have recently Shared their Maidenhead.

It's quite excellent in a variety of different ways, and, although I am not as big a fan of Gorey as some, I can recommend this book, co-created with Mel Juffe, unreservedly to you, irrespective of the recency of your own defloration.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I retire to my quarters to compose a Paean to Hymen.

UPDATE: new link here.

Not Quite "Lemonade," More Like Tangy Piss, Dept.

From the page:

"Bristol: Pregnancy wasn't 'ideal'

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and her daughter Bristol sought to discourage teen pregnancy Friday in a statement posted on the governor's website welcoming her first grandchild, Tripp, into the family.

The Alaska governor said that the pregnancy was 'shocking news' but said the family is now 'over the moon with the arrival of this healthy, beautiful baby.'

'When Bristol and Levi first told us the shocking news that she was pregnant, to be honest, we all at first looked at the situation with some fear and a bit of despair,' Palin said. 'Isn't it just like God to turn those circumstances into such an amazing, joyful blessing when you ask Him to help you through?'"

Praise the Lord, yes! You, Jane Doe, you know that terrible meth addiction of yours? Look at it as the Lord's way to get you into those kicky size 2s you've been eyeing! And you, Joe Blow, still grieving about that child you lost to a drunk driver? How about using his room for that home gym you've been thinking about adding to the house? Heck, there's no fuckup on your part--or on anyone else's part, for that matter--that you can't spin into a blessing from our Lord and Savior! You think you've got a handful of shit, brother, but God is always there to turn it into fertilizer! Especially when your political career hangs on your ability to keep your name bobbing in the public eye. So, ask the press to please respect your family's privacy but grab some headlines as you try to transform this eight-pound rebuttal of the efficacy of your abstinence teachings into confirmation of your righteous role in God's Eternal Plan! As Clown Jesus hisself sang in Godspell's toe-tapping words, "Yes, it's all for the best."

Oh, Madam Governor, you are by no means a cretinous, self-serving, self-righteous whited sepulcher.
Oops, it's Backwards Day!
So, you actually are.
For real.
This just in: Jesus does not want you for a sunbeam.
Film at 11.

No, Not Quite the "Culture President," Dept.

Just finished watching the 2008 Kennedy Center Honors show I'd recorded last week. The honorees were Twyla Tharp, Morgan Freeman, Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey, Barbra Streisand and George Jones. A few thoughts.

- Lily Tomlin, for some reason, introduced Twyla Tharp, who did her best Buster Keaton impression. Or was it Calvin Coolidge? At any rate, she didn't crack a smile during the entirety of her tribute and, if anything, seemed a bit annoyed to be missing a Golden Girls marathon. The "Sinatra Suite" performed to her choreography and the Chairman of the Board's music was oh-kay; the dancers seeming underrehearsed and generating all the chemistry of a rock and an ice cube in a bucket.

- Denzel Washington introduced Morgan Freeman, who got a montage and some blues performances from Delta nonagenarians Honeyboy Edwards and Pinetop Perkins and from young whippersnapper B.B. King. More wow-they're-in-their-nineties than entertainment--I mean, it's cool that Honeyboy was with Robert Johnson the night he died, but either tell us those stories or bring on younger Delta blues players who can still, you know, play. All very Smithsonian-y, as these things tend to be.

- Jack Black introduced Daltrey and Townshend because...ummm...he's a famous guy who's a fan? On came Joss Stone, who really really really needn't cross the Pond to our shores because, you see, dear, we had a Janis Joplin and her name was "Janis Joplin." Consequently, to have a neo-hippie, British Janis-wannabe singing, for reasons that are probably clearer to the benighted producers of this show than to your sobsister, "My Generation" is a bit throw-uppy, yes? Daltrey and Townshend, incidentally, looked like their livers were being pecked out by large birds during her performance. Dave Grohl did an okay-if-rushed "Who Are You." Then Bettye LaVette arose, as if Venus, foam-flecked product of the music gods, and killed with a yearning, churning, burning "Love, Reign O'er Me" (start at 3:00 here). Then, poor bastard, Dave "I'm Not the Wendy's Guy" Thomas had to follow her, and that with a ho-hum "Baba O'Riley." He was only saved by the fact that a chorus of NYC firefighters and cops appeared near the end, in honor of The Who's post-9/11 tribute concert performance. But, no, really, she fucking killed. I've oversold it, but go see.

- Laura Bush, a woman who, despite eight years in the public eye, still sounds like a small-town librarian before the PTA, paid tribute to Ol' Possum, George Jones. Something about feeding the jukebox quarters to hear "The Race Is On" and how she has her own George and, excuse me, but you have the cream of the government's speechwriters from whom to choose and this is the best you could get? Her stiffness was cast in the shadows, however, by Caroline Kennedy's negative charisma. This is a woman who wants to represent New York in the SENATE?! Wow. She makes Hillary look like Tina Turner meets Sandra Bernhard at Liza Minnelli's house. Anyhoo, the country boys know how to respect their elders. Real nice work all down the line, including a great three-piece medley by Garth Brooks, all visible (in so-so quality) here. King George rules.

- Then, Queen Latifah appeared...and I know you've heard me ask this before, but what miracle worker is her agent?. Annie Sullivan has nothing on that motherfucker, because I cannot understand the continuing popularity of a woman whose only apparent talent is self-promotion. She’s like the black Oprah. Anyway, Queen blathered on for a while, praising Babs for paving the way for other, multi-talented, triple-threat superstars (herself? oh, she's far too modest to connect those dots for the audience. just.), then introduced the new generation of people influenced by La Streisand. On came Broadway star Idina Menzel—okay, makes sense—who did a decent "Don't Rain On My Parade." Looking a bit drag queenish, but in generally good voice when she didn’t push the notes. Then Beyoncé—whose charms and talents I find totally resistible and could someone explain to me what her link would be to Babs?—offered another performance wherein she didn’t so much sing a song as pose for us for three minutes with the song as a pretext for occupying the stage and the spotlight. I mean, if you’re going to drag us through “The Way We Were,” B, could you try—for me—to dig just a leetel below the surface of the song and give us just a smidgey-widge of, I don’t know…interpretation? Too much to ask? Perhaps. Every time I see Beyoncé perform, it’s like watching rain slide off glass. Truly, she is the anti-Bettye. Then, Ne-Yo—no, reallytruly, what possible claim to a Streisand heritage could this dude and his hat have?—did a short number backed by four chorus boys who actually pulled focus from this vacuity every time they shared a frame. We finished with Kelli O’Hara, a woman with actual B’way cred, and opera baritone Nathan Gunn, singing “Somewhere,” backed by every black choir in Choc City.

- Caroline K. then reappeared to suck vampirically the charisma from all the choristers.

- Oh! I totally forgot to mention all the times the camera cut to Prez4Life Spongedrunk Smirkpants, wherein he looked a) bored, b) contemptuous, c) clueless, d) angry or e) impatient. It must suck for him to have to attend, you know, culture events with words and thoughts and shit. Especially when attending meant he didn’t get a chance to watch the YouTube video his aides cued up for him of a pig running riot through a wedding reception. It’s a hoot!


So, yeah, Kennedy Center Honors. A fair amount of sucking redeemed by Bettye LaVette. If they ever release this show on DVD, I suggest they use that as their tagline.