Here’s the thing, though – In order to make as many people as possible know about this, he issued a press release (since removed) on Christian News Wire.

Pastor [Raymond S. Porter] will be put into a casket for three days and three nights, from October 12th at 2:00 pm through October 15th at 9:00 am. Then he will come out and give a message to Mr. Obama from God, that the whole world may hear.

…

This is about murdering innocent babies. Our society calls it abortion, but I call it what it is murder.

The reason why I am doing this is out of obedience to God. Many Americans think our economy is failing because of the Bush Administration, but they are wrong, it is because of sin.

We are a very sinful nation, therefore God is against us. The only quote I have is from God’s word. 2 Chronicles 7:14 say’s ‘If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land’. We are suppose to be a civilized nation but we are practicing Barbaric behavior called human sacrifice. It is sad that we live in a county were it is perfectly legal to murder an unborn child for convenience, maybe the mother to be says, ‘It’s not the right time, I must further my career’, or a mother may tell her teenage daughter, ‘You must get rid of the baby because you are to young. You must finish school’. It is human sacrifice for one’s own convenience. Senator Barack Obama said if he becomes president that he would intervene in the African countries where genocide is taking place. He will not however, intervene in Roe vs. Wade which is genocide that is taking place here in America everyday disguised as planned parenthood.

Nice!

As a result, the recently deceased Billy Bob Neck did a video about the stunt:

Imagine my surprise when an email from R. S. Porter drifted into my inbox!. Rather than quote it, he asked me to remove the video to “avoid legal action.” Legal action? What do I look like, some pastor from Norfolk, Virginia? I’m supposed to take down a decent piece of comedy because you realized that proclaiming to the world that being buried alive would bring you a sign from God makes you look like a dumb-ass?

I politely declined.

Hm. I’m gonna say no for a few reasons.

1.    The video was posted three years ago. You had plenty of time between then and now to ask for its removal.
2.    The video has been seen by a whopping 686 people. Hardly enough to do any damage to you.
3.    A general Google search for Raymond S. Porter does not even land this video on the front page. And while it’s first if you look at videos, it’s obvious that I am not you.
4.    Oh! Look! There you are on myspace right underneath me! And you’ve just put a song out!  On myspace! You “do not desire to be on youtube “ but you do desire to be on myspace? Interesting distinction.
5.    Lastly, and most importantly, you put out a press release (since removed but documented here) about your burial thing, advertising your stunt put you into the public sphere. Once you are in the public sphere you are fair game. You gave up your “right to privacy” when you put out that press release. You don’t have a legal leg to stand on.

Long story short, you did something stupid that you’d rather people not know about and want to cover your tracks. I understand that. It was your decision to issue the press release. Without that, we wouldn’t be talking. Effectively, you’re asking me to take responsibility for your actions. I won’t do that.

You made your coffin, so lie in it.

Sincerely,

Paul Day
hbeeinc@gmail.com

PS to Pastor Raymond S. Porter: Some things are best left alone. Mistakes like this are forgotten. Calling them back from the dead and expecting good results really only worked for Jesus.

Major Caveat 1. I don’t like the The Three Stooges to begin with. I don’t get them. Even as a kid, before I knew how to be all snobby and shit, I didn’t get them. That’s not to say I don’t understand them or why people like them. I just don’t think they’re funny.

Major Caveat 2. I  have no basis in fact for anything I’m going to write. None.

That said…

If you’re reading this, I’m hoping you’ve seen the movie In Bruges. It took me awhile to get to this movie because the trailer sucked. We visited Bruges when we took the kids to Europe and it really is “a fucking fairy tale place.” The trailer for the movie made it look like some wacky comedy about hitmen. What it left out was the depth and complexity of possibly one the greatest screenplays ever produced. Watch it a couple of times. Track the use of the word “bottle.” The fat American guy at the beginning of the movie comes back at the end of the movie with the line, “The Tower is closed. An American had a heart attack.” That, my friends, is skill and craft. And, if you’re paying attention, it’s hilarious.

Americans, though, don’t care about paying attention. They want it, to use the title of a documentary by Erol Morris, “Fast, cheap and out of control.” Well. Not cheap, per se. They spent $40 million dollars to make The Three Stooges.

Let’s pause there a moment to think about that. Forty. Million. Dollars.

In Bruges cost $15 million.

Let’s think about how The Three Stooges got made. Movies start with ideas. I can think of several ideas that started production of The Three Stooges

1. I really love them. They were an influence on my life. So, I’d like to pay homage to them by…bringing them into the 21st century.
2. I can do this better than they could
3. What icon of Americans’ childhood haven’t we raped yet?
4. We need a film that’s gonna make a lot of money.
5. I’m a lazy fuck so let me just repackage something that already exists.

To my mind, none of these reasons even come close to justifying even the consideration of piece of shit.

1. If they were such an influence, go out and prove it by creating an actual homage that celebrates what you loved about them.
2. No. You can’t.
3. Nuff said
4. Nuff sad
5. Nuff said

How does this tie in to what’s wrong with America? Simple.

For the cost of The Three Stooges, three In Bruges could have been produced.

To put it in context:

For the cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, we could have probably turned around al Qaeda’s demonetization of America. Rather than bomb, cut and run in the 80′s when Reagan referred to the Taliban as “freedom fighters”, we could have stayed and helped them rebuild everything that got blown up. We could have kept them on our side.  Instead, we took that money and made the geopolitical version of The Three Stooges.  Why? Because America isn’t about substance.

Americans don’t like substance. Americans want pure, straight out entertainment. I’ll refer you to Paddy Chyefsky’s visionary movie, Network, in which he predicted the decline of the American news industry. It’s no longer about news. The death of a has-been celebrity will take over the news cycle for anywhere from 24 hours to a week. Literally, take over. This is well beyond the old axiom of “if it bleeds it leads.”

In a brilliant example of self-reference, the phrase “media circus” gets invoked…by the media…to talk about the circus….created by the media…that poo-poos the “media circus”.  Everyone gets all up in arms about it. But no one changes the channel. They’d rather watch The Three Stooges for a cheap, thoughtless thrill than In Bruges which is funnier, deeper and, ultimately more satisfying.  They’d rather vote to keep recycling the same, comforting ideas they’re familiar with rather than try something new that might bring about an actual change.

I’m guessing The Three Stooges with make a ton of money and we’ll see The Three Stooges Two. Who could resist a name like that?! And The Three Stooged Cubed! Boy, oh, boy! I can’t wait! God bless America….again.

How’s that thing that you do going? That was really good.

This ranks right up there with the following exchange that every musician knows and hates

Fan: You guys were fucking AWESOME!
Musician: Thanks! Wanna buy a CD?
Fan: CYA!

Billy Bob is dead. Irrevocably and irretrievably dead. Jon Stewart could ask him to come back and he wouldn’t. It’s done. After eight years it’s obvious that the character as I created him would languish in semi-obscurity. Thus – time for the shotgun.

People who enjoyed him might object to “semi-obscurity.” And they’re kind to do so but that’s just a demonstrable fact. At the end, about 25% of YouTube subscribers bothered to watch his videos. A whopping 0.01% of my estimated fanbase bought the CD. I think maybe 10 people donated to his PayPal account over the course of 8 years. Given that the CD cost about $300 to put out and BlogTalk Radio costs $39/mo I had a pretty simple decision: pick up the cost for the entertainment of others or fold. I chose the later.

I’ve always been averse to NPR fundraisers. I’m also a bit of a dick and a little too independent. I also have some social anxiety issues that I disguise by being a bit of a dick and a little too independent. That said, I have a hard time begging for people to pay attention to me or begging people for money. I’ve always gone off the stupid notion instilled in me as a WASP that good work gets rewarded. It’s not always true. But a lot of performance is chance and luck anyway.

And hard work and perseverance. I’m going to be honest – I didn’t have the hard work part down very well. Part of it was laziness. Part of it was knowing that it would come down to luck and chance anyway. Part of it was that I really was pretty much doing this for myself.  It was my vision and I was sticking to it.

After the soccer video came out, I got a call from a guy who produced shows in the vain of America’s Hottest Brides Attacked By Animals. He wanted to talk. So I drove down to NYC. What would I do with a TV show? I’d create an  alt-reality 700 Club right down to the commercial breaks. Effectively, an even deeper cover version of Fernwood 2nite. He was somewhat intrigued. And then we started talking about YouTube views. He pointed out that the Soccer Video was the most widely watched and why did I think that was? I knew where it was going. If I did videos about Lady Gaga and other idiocy, I’d be sitting pretty.

But that wasn’t the point of BBN. And I made it clear that, yes, I understood and no, I had no interest in whoring off Twilight for ratings. We kept up some polite correspondence and slowly the matter dropped. Which was just as well.

Another reason to dump him: the Boston comedy scene is bullshit. Again, through a combination of dickishness and social anxiety, I basically never got booked no matter how strongly I rocked the house. Check out the invitation (slightly paraphrased) I got from one club:

Hey – We’re having a Halloween show and were trying to think of comics that do costumes and we finally remembered you.

Yeah? THANKS! Never mind I did free computer work and some odd digital jobs for the person.

I need, of course, to address my ego a little more in depth. I was taken to task by Mehran once saying that I thought things should be handed to me. I understand where that comes from but I don’t agree with it.

Another story: Norah went to Chicago on business and I tagged along. To take my part off on my taxes I hit an open mic and rocked it. The next day, I had an email from a guy offering me $25 for 10mins at a local club.

“Where did you come from,” he asked?

“Boston. I’m not here for too long. Just visiting.”

“Too bad. I could get you more gigs. You’re great!”

Flash forward a few weeks later at The Comedy Studio. Again, I rocked it. And I was depressed as all fuck.

“What’s wrong,” Mehran asked, “You destroyed up there! God, that was so good!!”

“Yeah?”, I said. “And what’s that gonna get me. Will anyone book me for killing up there? Will you? If you get your own show will you be calling asking me to do your show because I’m a solid, reliable performer? I doubt it. And no one else will, either.” I told him the story of Chicago. He walked away.

After that, I had Mehran on the Hour of Bein’ Good twice. He enjoyed himself both times as did I. Did he ever return the favor. Of course not. Why? You’d have ask him.

Over the course of BBN, I did just shy of 200 videos, a full year of Monday – Friday one minute podcasts (“Briefly Patriotic”), god know how many articles for Shelley The Republican (many weeks I literally wrote the site myself – an article a day) and probably 500+ hour long radio shows. And a ton of stand up gigs.

So, I’m pretty happy with my bona fides. Did I not push and market enough? Probably not. But thus is the path of those with a combination of dickishness and social anxiety. I’m no good a ramming things down people’s throats.  I kind of assume that when someone says “Good, that’s so good” they’ll come back for more. I know that’s not the case and, honestly, I’m trying to work through my own attitudes about it because of this.

Currently, the YouTube total for BBN’s death announcement sits at 878 views.

The video for the CD release is 338. Less than half.

So, the call to end BBN seems justified. The market isn’t there. And I have a good answer to “How’s that thing that you do going?”

It’s dead.

So you don’t have to worry about asking anymore.

Seriously! I’m glad she’s dead. It should be celebrated in the same way that Idi Amin’s death should be celebrated – that evil has finally gone back to mixing bowl until the next batch of evil is ready to go get cooked up.

The point of life, and I don’t I’m being too broad here, is to act like what most people consider to be “adult”. Rand’s philosphy is easily summed up in a sentence: “I’m taking my ball and going home.”

Normal people, AKA: Humans, would see an accident and call for help. Someone is in trouble and a life might be at risk. Objectivists would look at that accident and, if it wasn’t going to make them late for work, would drive on by. After all, they didn’t cause it. Whoever did cause it obviously did something wrong, showing a lack of understanding about driving. On top of that, they have a cell phone they can call for help with and if they don’t, they need to get a job. And what are they doing with a car?
I’ve spoken about Rand in a previous podcast which is why I probably got tapped to talk about how happy I am that she’s dead. Seriously. I’m tickled pink! But let me give a quick overview for the uninitiated. Rand came from the Russian privileged class right at the time of the Russian Revolution. As a result, the Communists took her pony away and her parents sent her to the US by herself. And she really loved that pony! It was HER pony, not the Communists’ pony! Somebody else had worked really hard to give her the pony and so she founded Objectivism which states that what you work for belongs to you and everyone else is a leach.  Oh. And her mommy didn’t love her. Once in the US, she got married and became an adulteress who freaked out when her boyfriend started banging other women. She went on to author several books of middle-brow pornography disguised as economic and social philosophy, became a speed freak and died.
Which is why the Christian Right loves her.  Nothing says “Jesus” like devoting your life to dwelling on a childhood trauma. Actually, if Jesus acted like Ayn Rand, he’d be slumped on a barstool, hopped up
on speed muttering, “and then my FUCKING FATHER tells me, ‘heads up, Jesus, you’re gonna be crucified.’ CAN YOU FUCKING BELIEVE THAT!? And the Romans are all like ‘yeah, that’s cool.’ People SUCK.”

But I digress.

The true evil of Rand is that some of what she says makes sense. Personal responsibility is important.  You can’t caretake everyone in the world. And that’s for a couple of different reasons.  The first is that some people don’t want to be taken care of. They look at freedom as…well…freedom.  They’re more than happy to squat in a vacant building furnished with stuff other people throw away. They’re happy to live for free. The second is that some people are just assholes and users and should be scorned by society. What Rand does, and this is a throwback to her childhood, is that she assumes that if you don’t have your own pony, you want hers. She promotes a fascist paradigm in which you are sub-human if you don’t have what she has. If you don’t, you’re an asshole and a user.

It should be easy to see why socially awkward adolescent males flock to Rand’s philosophy.  Have you looked at a picture of Rand disciple and former chairman of the Federal Reserve Alan Greenspan?
Yeah. It’s like that.

Like most ideology, the adoption of Rand’s philosophy was a fluke. And, like most ideology, it created rabid jihadist adherents. The difference is that the starting point of Rand’s philosophy is that pretty much everyone sucks. Everyone wants her pony.  At the height of the cold war, when it was better to be dead than red, sharing and helping your neighbor was seen to be evil.  Stalin didn’t help disabuse the world of that notion.

As a socially awkward adolescent male, I fell for Objectivism. And, frankly, it’s tough to shake sometimes. Like herpes, you never really get rid of it. The best you can do is warn others against the dangers of it and quarantine yourself when you feel the onset of a flare up.

Happy death day, Ayn Rand! The world is a better place without you.

I don’t think I’m particularly slow. I could, of course, be fooling myself. Plenty have people have told me over the years, “You’re not as clever as you think you are.” Perhaps they’re right. But as you watch this clip of Bryan Fischer (whose name is spelled a little faggy, if you ask me). At least one thing should jump out at you.

Jesus’ command to take care of the poor was not given to the government, it was give to us.

I’m going to go to dictionary.com and look up “government“. brb.

Anyway, Baratunde busted his ass for years, selling his first book out of suitcase after shows. He may still be doing this. And, in all honestly, you should go to see him live and buy one directly from him. But, if you’re lazy, you can and should buy it online.

That said, in 2007, I asked Baratunde to do a series for Black History Month and he kindly rose to the challenge. Listen to it. Then buy the book. Let me put it differently – IF you listen to it, THEN you will buy the book.

Thanks again to Baratunde for letting me not only repurpose this but for allowing me whore his wonderful new book!

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3 + 4

Part 5

Part 6

Part 7

Part 8

It’s little more than a one-room shack. The candles flicker in the drafts that leak through the broken windows and gaps in the logs. Three men huddle over a broken generator while a fourth pumps away on the stationary bike that provides auxiliary power on such occasions. A grim sense of purpose hangs over the room.

“How it’s comin’ with that generator, boys,” grunts the man on the bike. “My legs are startin’ to give out.”

“Hold out as long as you can, TJ,” says a man in a baseball cap that reads “Kill Those Who Kill The Unborn”. “We almost got it. Rush,” he speaks to a seven-year old boy reading the Bible in the corner, “grind up some more rats. She’s gonna need feedin’ soon.”

“’K, Daddy.”

All eyes drift to the center of the shack where she lays like an aging Snow White. The heroic attempt to preserve her in amber until a prince kisses her has left her looking like Norma Desmond in a low budget remake of Sunset Boulevard. Hundreds of bottles of peroxide litter the floor, betraying the heroic attempt to keep her blonde. Garish swaths of red rise from her cheeks like the welts of a battered welfare mother. All but one of her teeth, long since fallen out, lie at the bottom of a bottle of Jack Daniels with the label respectfully removed that sits on the mantle of the fireplace like the Arc of the Covenant. The remaining tooth slowly dissolves in a glass of Coke, a reminder to the seven-year old of the hazards of sugary drinks. The men know that she would approve.

Forty years ago, after the accident, telegrams, flowers and pledges of support flooded her private hospital room. State of the art equipment pinged and beeped and kept her alive. The top doctors in the world worked tirelessly, but to no avail. Brain dead, they said. The humane thing to do was to let her drift into the heaven she so fiercely defended. But, as she said, there was always a hope that she could recover as long she could be kept alive. And she could be kept alive. And she might recover. “Heroic efforts,” it had said.

The question remained. Where had the penny come from? Who had dropped it from the top of the Washington Monument? A child? A spurned lover? Hillary Clinton? The police report called the whole thing a freak occurrence. Quote-unquote experts bored everyone with the physics of trajectory in the vain attempt of quote-unquote proving that even Lee Harvey Oswald could not have purposefully aimed the penny that penetrated her skull.

And, yet, the questioned remained. Why had the doctors disposed of the penny after the operation? What of the business card found at the top of the monument that read “Parallax Corp.”? The child at the top of the monument was home schooled. Videotape showed two lesbians laughing just seconds after she crumpled to a heap on the ground below. And the date – 11/22/03. It all added up to something…something sinister. But what?

Slowly, a conspiracy to sully her reputation erupted. The headlines screamed the news. “Tofu found in her fridge!” A Leo Busclagia book on her bedside table. Lesbian dominatrix porn found on the hard drive of her iBook. Erotic emails between her and Midge Decter. All lies, of course. Slander. Treason. A pathetic attempt to blunt her legacy. Mother Jones called her the “Roy Cohn of the 21st century.” Some fell away, victims of a cowardly smear campaign. Rush Limbaugh, freshly sober again and seemingly on the right track this time, OD’d under suspicious circumstances. Robert Downey Jr. spoke eloquently at his funeral.

Her publishing firm used the occasion to hype her unfinished book “Sodomy: How All Liberals Want To Molest Children And Then Eat Them.” The book, released to lukewarm reviews, stayed on the NYT list for three years provided years of fodder for jokes on late-night talk shows. The vultures had circled and won, it seemed.

But the faithful stayed true. A 24/7 vigil around her bedside. Websites with PayPal donations. As her book fell off the charts, the hospital gently suggested new lodgings. A convalescence home was found. The bills started to pile up. A decade later, with Medicare bankrupt and her bank account drained, the home reluctantly evicted her all but lifeless body. Few remembered her. Many of those who did, did so malevolently. A vegan restaurant had on its menu a yogurt whose base, they claimed, was created on the day of the accident. They called it Cogurt.

For years, the faithful shuttled her from private home to private home. Due to the cost of the electricity needed to keep her alive, these stays lasted until the utility bills came through.

Two decades after the accident, Rush’s old dealer, now clean, sober and committed to Christ, offered his shack in the Ozarks and vowed to continue her care until the end of his life.

“Daddy,” the boy asks as he turns the crank on the meat grinder, “how long we gonna keep this up? I mean –“

His father cuts him off with a glare.

“’Til she’s better, Rush. Ya know that. ‘Til she’s better.”

Folks, I hate to tell you this. I know this is an atheist and liberal leaning podcast and, really, it pains me to tell you this, but Jesus will be the next president of the United States. And not the historical meek and mild, turn-the-other-cheek Jesus. The Jesus that rips off your head and shits down your neck.. So…make plans now.  And even if you plan to risk it, start investing in bible companies. Or, better yet, wood and nail companies cuz there’s gonna be a whole lotta crucifying going on.

I don’t need to tell you that America is fucked. You already know that. Right-wing astroturf groups posing as Christian Patriots have, in the course of two years, changed the political map of the United States of America. It’s not that there’s a lot of them. It’s not that anybody honestly believes anything that say. How, then did they get to where they are? How did, as just happened in 9.12, what in any other time period of American History would have been termed a Republican Primary Debate for President of the United States, get advertised as a “Tea Party Debate”?

The answer is obvious yet not in an obvious way – Money.

When I say money, I don’t mean that the Tea Party drove a truck up to CNN in Atlanta and dumped a cargo of cash on their doorstep.  Not at all. Rather, CNN, whose ratings sleep with the fishes, needed some kind of sexy name to get people to actually watch it again. And so, in the name of profit, they handed legitimacy to a far right, nearly fascist group of Americans that want nothing more than to ship anyone who doesn’t buy into their vision of “freedom” off to work camps.  

You’re finding this hyperbolic, aren’t you.  You’re thinking that he’s just a whiny little liberal in the US that invested in a wood and nail company and wants a good return on his investment.  You’re only half-right

Consider one of the biggest of the Tea Party money making machines – Tea Party Nation. Tea Party Nation recently “published” an article on its Fibsite entitled “Conservative Socialists.” You read that right.  Conservative Socialists. What, exactly, is a conservative socialist? According to Tea Party Nation “They endorse the idea that we should silence people who do not agree with the party line..” It should be pretty obvious that the rest of the article calls for…well… silencing people who do not agree with the Tea Party line. Even a year ago, teabaggers wouldn’t dare to call other republicans “socialists.” They called them a lot of other names like RINO (which stands for Republican In Name Only. They might, on certain occasions, call them traitors. But to pull out the stops and treat them like Democrats portends  a show of force that…let’s just say there’s a beerhall involved. And it’s shitty American beer.

According to a Quinnipiac poll only 13% of US voters consider themselves teabaggers. Thus, CNN saw fit re-label a previously Republican debate to cater to a very small sliver of the populace.

Why?

Because the Tea Party means ratings. It means completely fucking insane individuals like Rick Santorum who compared homosexuality to man-on-dog sex. It mean Michelle Bachman who believes Congress people should have their loyalty investigated and tested. It mean Herman Cain who thinks all bills should be less than three pages long. It mean Ron Paul and his pack of sycophants applauding when he says a that the US doesn’t need to regulate the car companies because Americans know how to buy a safe car. It gives Newt Gingrich, as man who divorced two wives while they were in the hospital and prosecuted Bill Clinton for having an affair WHILE HE HIMSELF WAS HAVING AN AFFAIR any platform to speak at all.

In other words, this isn’t so much a debate as The Jersey Shore starring people with more education.  Please note, I didn’t say “smarter”.

CNN should be ashamed for whoring itself out so badly. But, they probably got paid well for it. Anyway, I stopped watching CNN when they became the Missing White Girl network with their coverage of an over-privileged white girl gone missing on a high-school graduation party in Aruba paid for by her divorced parents. CNN then disbanded the whole Headine News channel to make way for whole programs devoted to missing white girls. CNN is a cancer on America. Let me correct that. They’re not even important enough to be cancer. They’re cells that turn INTO cancer infecting the rest of the body of America.  In some backroom, Ted Turner sits smoking a cigar and masturbating to Jane Fonda work out tapes while toadies throw out ideas on how to keep him in VCRs. Frequently, an ejaculation can be followed by a YESSSSSSSSS and the next thing you know, the Republican debate becomes a Tea Party debate.

Two final ironies -

The first – when the Tea Party speaks of the Lame Stream Media, they mean CNN. CNN is the enemy. For CNN to rename the debate to suck up to people that hate them…that’s like Clarisse Starling from Silence of the Lambs naming her summer  home Chez Lecter. It doesn’t make sense.

Lastly, and the whole reason for this – Neither CNN nor the Democratic Party would ever in a thousand years agree to rename a Democratic Debate a “Green Party” debate. CNN would lose any credibility it had and the Tea Party (who they’d just swallowed for) would scream about liberal bias in the media. As it stands, the Tea Party does this with any positive mention of a Democrat. And the Democratic party – well, it has no balls left and barely means anything anymore.  The moment any pundit in America ties “liberal” and “democrat” together, the Democratic party crawls into its turtle shell and denies it.  They are so scared of the right’s continuing demonization of them they can’t even pass Universal Healthcare will full control of the government and the backing of the American people.

The problem in America today is NOT polarization, as many like to claim. It’s LACK of polarization. If Democrats ever grow their balls back (and I doubt they will) they would not only embrace the moniker “socialist” but actually tell the truth loud and clear that we are already a socialist country. How we, in the best Christian tradition, want to screw the poor while handing out four billion dollars in subsidies to oil companies that already make record profits and, in some cases, pay no taxes.  Obama claimed he would walk the picket line while he was campaigning but, when given the chance, demurred.  Unions, after all, are socialist and pictures of the President supporting something he clams to believe in…it may play to the base but why risk it? Meanwhile, over on the other side, Republicans embrace anyone with any crackpot theory with a voice loud enough to shout down a Congress person at a townhall meeting? You would like to think that if someone accepted the endorsement of a person claimed that God sent Hitler to get the Jews back to Israel, that candidacy would be over. You’re wrong. John McCain still went on to lose his shot at the office.

And that is why Jesus will be the next president of the United States.

Folks, I hate to tell you this. I know this is an atheist and liberal leaning podcast and, really, it pains me to tell you this, but Jesus will be the next president of the United States. And not the historical meek and mild, turn-the-other-cheek Jesus. The Jesus that rips off your head and shits down your neck.. So…make plans now.  And even if you plan to risk it, start investing in bible companies. Or, better yet, wood and nail companies cuz there’s gonna be a whole lotta crucifying going on.

I don’t need to tell you that America is fucked. You already know that. Right-wing astroturf groups posing as Christian Patriots have, in the course of two years, changed the political map of the United States of America. It’s not that there’s a lot of them. It’s not that anybody honestly believes anything that say. How, then did they get to where they are? How did, as just happened in 9.12, what in any other time period of American History would have been termed a Republican Primary Debate for President of the United States, get advertised as a “Tea Party Debate”?

The answer is obvious yet not in an obvious way – Money.

When I say money, I don’t mean that the Tea Party drove a truck up to CNN in Atlanta and dumped a cargo of cash on their doorstep.  Not at all. Rather, CNN, whose ratings sleep with the fishes, needed some kind of sexy name to get people to actually watch it again. And so, in the name of profit, they handed legitimacy to a far right, nearly fascist group of Americans that want nothing more than to ship anyone who doesn’t buy into their vision of “freedom” off to work camps.

You’re finding this hyperbolic, aren’t you.  You’re thinking that he’s just a whiny little liberal in the US that invested in a wood and nail company and wants a good return on his investment.  You’re only half-right

Consider one of the biggest of the Tea Party money making machines – Tea Party Nation. Tea Party Nation recently “published” an article on its Fibsite entitled “Conservative Socialists.” You read that right.  Conservative Socialists. What, exactly, is a conservative socialist? According to Tea Party Nation “They endorse the idea that we should silence people who do not agree with the party line..” It should be pretty obvious that the rest of the article calls for…well… silencing people who do not agree with the Tea Party line. Even a year ago, teabaggers wouldn’t dare to call other republicans “socialists.” They called them a lot of other names like RINO (which stands for Republican In Name Only. They might, on certain occasions, call them traitors. But to pull out the stops and treat them like Democrats portends  a show of force that…let’s just say there’s a beerhall involved. And it’s shitty American beer.

According to a Quinnipiac poll only 13% of US voters consider themselves teabaggers. Thus, CNN saw fit re-label a previously Republican debate to cater to a very small sliver of the populace.

Why?

Because the Tea Party means ratings. It means completely fucking insane individuals like Rick Santorum who compared homosexuality to man-on-dog sex. It mean Michelle Bachman who believes Congress people should have their loyalty investigated and tested. It mean Herman Cain who thinks all bills should be less than three pages long. It mean Ron Paul and his pack of sycophants applauding when he says a that the US doesn’t need to regulate the car companies because Americans know how to buy a safe car. It gives Newt Gingrich, as man who divorced two wives while they were in the hospital and prosecuted Bill Clinton for having an affair WHILE HE HIMSELF WAS HAVING AN AFFAIR any platform to speak at all.

In other words, this isn’t so much a debate as The Jersey Shore starring people with more education.  Please note, I didn’t say “smarter”.

CNN should be ashamed for whoring itself out so badly. But, they probably got paid well for it. Anyway, I stopped watching CNN when they became the Missing White Girl network with their coverage of an over-privileged white girl gone missing on a high-school graduation party in Aruba paid for by her divorced parents. CNN then disbanded the whole Headine News channel to make way for whole programs devoted to missing white girls. CNN is a cancer on America. Let me correct that. They’re not even important enough to be cancer. They’re cells that turn INTO cancer infecting the rest of the body of America.  In some backroom, Ted Turner sits smoking a cigar and masturbating to Jane Fonda work out tapes while toadies throw out ideas on how to keep him in VCRs. Frequently, an ejaculation can be followed by a YESSSSSSSSS and the next thing you know, the Republican debate becomes a Tea Party debate.

Two final ironies -

The first – when the Tea Party speaks of the Lame Stream Media, they mean CNN. CNN is the enemy. For CNN to rename the debate to suck up to people that hate them…that’s like Clarisse Starling from Silence of the Lambs naming her summer  home Chez Lecter. It doesn’t make sense.

Lastly, and the whole reason for this – Neither CNN nor the Democratic Party would ever in a thousand years agree to rename a Democratic Debate a “Green Party” debate. CNN would lose any credibility it had and the Tea Party (who they’d just swallowed for) would scream about liberal bias in the media. As it stands, the Tea Party does this with any positive mention of a Democrat. And the Democratic party – well, it has no balls left and barely means anything anymore.  The moment any pundit in America ties “liberal” and “democrat” together, the Democratic party crawls into its turtle shell and denies it.  They are so scared of the right’s continuing demonization of them they can’t even pass Universal Healthcare will full control of the government and the backing of the American people.

The second – The problem in America today is NOT polarization, as many like to claim. It’s LACK of polarization. If Democrats ever grow their balls back (and I doubt they will) they would not only embrace the moniker “socialist” but actually tell the truth loud and clear that we are already a socialist country. How we, in the best Christian tradition, want to screw the poor while handing out four billion dollars in subsidies to oil companies that already make record profits and, in some cases, pay no taxes.  Obama claimed he would walk the picket line while he was campaigning but, when given the chance, demurred.  Unions, after all, are socialist and pictures of the President supporting something he clams to believe in…it may play to the base but why risk it? Meanwhile, over on the other side, Republicans embrace anyone with any crackpot theory with a voice loud enough to shout down a Congress person at a townhall meeting? You would like to think that if someone accepted the endorsement of a person claimed that God sent Hitler to get the Jews back to Israel, that candidacy would be over. You’re wrong. John McCain still went on to lose his shot at the office.

And that is why Jesus will be the next president of the United States.

“Vic. There IS no homosexual agenda. What you claim is
the homosexual agenda was a satirical piece in a gay newspaper
that was read into the Congressional record without the pre-amble.
Say it!”

I’m not ashamed to say it. The lies and rationalizations warrant the harshest treatment imaginable. I heard a guy at an AA meeting once

If you wish good things for a person you hate for a month straight, that person at the end of them month that person will no longer be a problem to you. And it works. Usually, I wish that the person would go to Hell sooner rather than later.

A-fucking-men.

I guess it’s a sign of the times that the 8/5/11 Crosstalk stands out as the quintessential guide to xtianity. It literally shows you everything that’s wrong with this particular brand of SkyDaddy-ism.

Note: All clips are verbatim and not edited. There is one exception that I will flag. I cut out a chunk of crap for the sake of time.

Atheistic Scientists Waste Citizens Tax Dollars – Why do we bother exploring the universe when GOD created it? Three interesting things to listen for -

1. “interesting”. Whenever a VCY host says this (and I’m pretty sure they’re trained on the proper inflection) you know that bitter, Christly sarcasm lurks just around the corner.
2. “fiiiive yeeee-ers”. The setup for the punchline. Normal people might think, “wow! Jupiter! I wonder what that will look like?” xtians only see xtian oppression and proof America’s slow decline into Communism and race mixing.
3. Faux-folksy chuckle – I actually admire their delivery. You can just feel the old folks sitting in their nursing home chuckling appreciatively and desperately trying to remember the joke so they can tell it to their nurse.

You Are Automatically A Member Of Whatever Group Endorses You – The Communist Party endorsed Obama so Obama is a Communist. Makes sense, right? Hagee endorsed McCain so that make McCain and anti-semite. White Pride Preacher Pastor Pete Peters endorses Jesus. That makes Jesus racist.

This is the one that is edited. I took out Jim’s recitation of the speech the godless Communist made which is all standard blah-blah and cut straight to the incitement to outrage of “get your reaction to that later in the broadcast.” News round ups need that punching up in case granny needs her memory jogged.

Taxpayers Paying For The President Doing Things That President’s Does – Whuh?? The President of the United States of America is going to travel around the country he’s the president of and talk to its citizens??? AND WE’RE GONNA PAY FOR THAT??? How fucking dare he! Spreading commie propaganda, promoting the homosexual agenda and denying the supremacy of Jesus on OUR DIME! What has this country come to?

It’s this kind of bullshit that makes me insane. As if Obama should pay for this out of his own pocket. Obama’s townhalls accept all questions. He does them completely unscripted. I believe he’s at his most powerful when he does them. All these wingnuts that say he can’t function without a teleprompter need only to watch a townhall to know that he’s actually better without it. What’s next? “OMG! Obama gets room and board at the taxpayers’ expense??”

Census Shows Gays Are Taking Over – Why bother to explain something when just stating raw facts with no context is so much more frightening? Gay households up 49% sounds like a lot…until you find out that the Census didn’t previously include gay households. Kinda puts that into perspective, huh? Which is why it’s not mentioned. The last thing you want is people feeling like the news may not be as horrific as it sounds.

Why Can’t We Teach People That Jesus Loves Blowing Shit Up? – When you need to hold a class to twist the Bible to support your agenda, there’s something wrong with your agenda.  Thus the Christian Just War Theory class (“Hey! C’mon, you pussy! It’s just war“) shouldn’t really be needed. Since the Bible is God’s inerrant word, we should all be het up and raring to wipe out the infidel Muslims, Commies, yada yada. Of course, if you’re using the King James Version (commissioned by bi-sexual King James) it’s gonna come out all wrong. Instead, use the Conservative Bible Project’s version and all becomes clear.

Laws Against Lying Aren’t Christian – The case that wingnut girls over at the Susan B. Anthony List, rather than staying home and taking care of their kids and serving their husbands the way God wants, instead descend, harpy-like, on anyone they feel isn’t anti-abortion enough. They did this to Steve Driehaus, a Democrat who voted for the Health Care bill. Even though the bill does NOT include “taxpayer funded abortion”, the girls put up billboards saying that Driehaus voted for taxpayer funded abortion. In other words, they lied. It’s what Addison DeWitt would call “a stupid lie, easily proven.”

SBA claims First Amendment rights for “criticizing a politician”. But when does outright lying become criticizing a politician? SBA, like most wingnuts, screams to what they take to be the heavens any time someone challenges them. Like Jesus, they willingly climb on the cross, dripping blood on anyone foolish enough to come to close to them. Outside of the illegality of blatantly lying about your opponet, one would think that the whole “thou shalt not bear false witness thing” would come into play. You’d be wrong.

What amazes, amuses and saddens me about Crosstalk is just how far the rabbit hole they are. They do shows on how it’s in the Koran that you’re allowed to advance Islam with seemingly no clue as to how their actions mimic those of the heathen infidels. It’s the same thing with religious supremacy. While claiming that bloodthirsty Islam won’t rest until the entire world converts to Islam, they believe that they can’t rest until the same wicked Muslims that want to convert the world to Islam convert to Christianity.

Old Chestnuts Never Die – One thing you may not understand about Crosstalk’s special brand of xtianity is their deep and abiding hatred of any physical connection between body and soul. It’s just not ok. Wicked things like “yoga” and “feelings” lead straight to the pit of Hell. I’m not kidding. They’ve done whole shows on the evils of Christian yoga which, according to them, can allow you to relax to a point where Satan can physically enter you. Basically, the moment you start feeling ok about yourself is the precise moment when you sin. Brannon Howse once said that he wakes up every morning and hates himself…so that he doesn’t sin. I would think he hates himself because he’s a lying, scumbag race-baiter, but that’s just me.

Either way, Crosstalk never misses a chance to talk about how “new-age spirituality” and the apostates who love it, will no doubt bring down “the church” if they are not stopped and not stopped NOW. It’s really the same Pavlovian trigger as “communist” and “homosexual agenda”. The image of the earthy-crunchy devil worshiper with their beads and their crystals fires up the base as much a black man being president. So when some group comes out with the 10 billion beats to cure the world the through the power of a drum circle….well…I think it’s ripe for ridicule but it’s not evil.

HEYA! Let’s go to the phones! It’s really the main reason to listen to Crosstalk. The hosts and guests rarely match the level of crazy that Brother and Sister Xtian can bring. To wit -

I’d Rather Be A Terrorist Than A Commie – Mark came loaded for bear. He had a statement and he was gonna make it, gosh darn it! It doesn’t matter that it makes no sense. He mostly likely heard it last night at the bar. Note the conditional “if I was a Tea Party member”. That’s some commitment! Note, too, how pleased Jim sounds.

How Can Obama Push The Muslim Agenda AND The Homo Agenda? – What a great question! If Obama is the devout Muslim that Shirley believes him to be, how can he push the homo agenda when Islam (just like xtianity) hates gay people? My question would be “Why don’t we ever get pictures of him bowing to Mecca?” Shouldn’t there be tons of those? Jim can’t actually answer the question so he falls back on the “Muslims can do whatever they want to advance their agenda” line, effectively saying “do you expect consistency from the wicked Nation of Islam?” The question is answered by a caller later in the program. It turns out Muslims are using the homosexuals to destroy America and, once it’s destroyed, will kill all the gays. Clever!

They Want To Make Us Give Up Our Capitalism – I love the callers that pretend they’re actually sticking to the subject when they’re going somewhere completely different. I also love callers the define “the enemy” as everyone who is not them. Thus, the New World Order consists of Jews, Muslims, gays and pretty much everyone who is not American.

Exactly how would one be forced to give up their capitalism. I was pretty sure the whole New Word Order thing was based on capitalism. Right?

Uhhhhhh…Uhhhhhh…Uhhhhhh…I’m Crazy – Why is this best Crosstalk ever? Because, almost as if by (intelligent) design, they save the best for last. Daniel probably doesn’t get to talk to too many people because he’s busy cleaning he’s guns when he’s not collecting his socialist unemployment check and/or disability. You really have to wonder about folks who listen to Crosstalk and STILL have to ask what the “Muslim bible” is called. He’s not even functional enough to remember that. And yet…there he is. Think about the construction of his statement -

Uhhhhh….Uhhh…what’s the Muslim Bible called? Right. Uhhhhh…uhhhh…Isn’t Islam bad?

But the coup d’ grace comes with “the chemicals in our food are destroying us.” Where the HELL did that come from? Perfect!

I really can’t urge you strongly enough to listen to the whole show. Completely worth it!

It was a tough stereotype to push through. I don’t care for organized religion, much less one based on infanticide. By logical extension, I’m not going to care much for their music.

We don’t smoke marihuana in Muskogee/We don’t take our trips on LSD

So, you want me to try your God but you won’t try mine? That seems unfair.

Hank Williams Sr. prodded me along towards not snapping the radio off at the sound of a steel guitar. Driving through South Boston with some uber-cool actress I was doing a show with, her mixtape did a 180 and Hank tweeted in tweedily.

Comb your hair and paint and powder you act proud and I’ll act prouder
You sing loud and I’ll sing louder tonight we’re settin’ the woods on fire

I don’t care how jaded you portray yourself as, the song blasts the hell out of any wall of practiced ennui with sonic waves joy and happiness.  And, since the first one’s free, I went out and bought a bunch of him a few weeks later. Still, it didn’t turn me into a Country fan. Just a Hank Williams fan.

The next milepost turned out to be Ray Charles, of all people. Ray Charles shocked his friends and admirers with his love of Country music. That’s right – one of the most soulful men on the planet, the man responsible for turning Gospel into R&B and a pretty decent heroin addict, too, had a major fondness for redneck music.  When asked why he responded with awe, “the stories, man! Listen to the stories.”

That’s the key to country music – the stories. No other genre depends so heavily on first person narration of a story line. “Billy, Don’t Be A Hero” is told by a witness, not a participant. George Jones’  A Good Year For The Roses throws you head first into the end of a crumbling marriage and doesn’t care how uncomfortable you get

After three full years of marriage,
It’s the first time that you haven’t made the bed
I guess the reason we’re not talking,
There’s so little left to say we haven’t said
While a million thoughts go racing through my mind
I find I haven’t said a word
From the bedroom the familiar sound
Of a baby’s crying goes unheard

That verse alone ought to disabuse you of the notion that country songs are simplistic. Kick in the chorus and you’re talking  a major artistic triumph.

What a good year for the roses
Many blooms still linger there
The lawn could stand another mowing
Funny I don’t even care
As you turn to walk away
As the door behind you closes
The only thing I have to say
It’s been a good year for the roses

This is John Q. Public watching his wife walk out the door, leaving him with the kid and the only metaphor he can use to process it with is the state of his yard. Country? Sounds pretty suburban to me.

The drama and angst of A Good Year For The Roses increases when you realize that he gives no cause for the break up.  It doesn’t get more bare-bones existential than that.  There is no path to redemption. No deus ex machina. In fact, no religion at all, monotheistic Christian OR polytheistic Greek.

Once you realize it’s the “the stories, man, the stories” only then can you start to dig deep enough to realize that the best country music is almost totally devoid of even the hint of God or redemption through his grace. George Jones is fucked.  How’d he get that way? Doesn’t matter. Will he get better? Doesn’t matter. Will his prayer group bring over a casserole later tonight? Probably not.  For the foreseeable future it’s him and the kid and an awful lot of alcohol.

This is mainstream Country.  Or was before somebody got the bad idea that country-pop would be a good idea. The next thing you know, content went rocketing out the window like so many of Paul McCartney’s “silly love songs”. The fact is from the Carter Family onward, country music’s favorite topic was pain without redemption.

Another classic example – The Banks of the Ohio which tells the charming story of a guy whose girlfriend turns down his proposal of marriage so he kills her. The end.

I took her by her pretty white hand
I let her down that bank of sand
I pushed her in where she would drown
Lord, I saw her as she floated down

Returning home about twelve or one
Thinking “Lord, what a deed I’ve done?”
I killed the girl I love, you see
Because she would not marry me

This song was a HUGE hit. Seriously. Massively huge.

In many cases, the flower of Southern womanhood is, was and continues to be deflowered at an alarming rate. Frequently because they really just want to get laid like Kitty Welles does in I’ll Be All Smiles Tonight.

Another’s arms tomorrow
May hold him oh so tight
Tho’ there may be tears tomorrow
I’ll be all smiles tonight

Lynn Anderson plumbs the depths of utter drunken whoredom in Tell Me A Lie. Lynn the barfly, perches (or rather slouches) on the bar stool waiting for anything in a pair of trousers to take her home.

Tell me a lie say I look familiar though I know that you don’t even know my name
Tell me a lie say you just got into town
Even though I’ve seen you here before just hangin’ round
Tell me a lie say you’re not a married man
Even though I saw you slip off your weddin’ band
Tell me a lie say you got no place to stay
You’ll be glad to drop me off cause it’s on your way

Remember – when Sarah Palin talks about the good old days and “real Americans” these are the songs they flocked to. Songs of drunkenness, sexual depravity and unconscionable violence. And if . those very un-Christian (and therefore un-American) concepts aren’t good/bad enough, how about I’ve Never Loved Anyone More from The Best of Lynn Anderson? A haunting song in which she tells the one true love of her life that even though she found some guy she can tolerate, she’ll never love anyone more than him..aka – the guy she’s not married to.

Family values. What are they? Apparently, since I’ve stayed married to the same woman for twenty years and we’ve raised two beautiful kids that aren’t drug addicts, alcoholics, in juvie or had abortions my opinions about them don’t matter. We must be doing something wrong. Apparently because I listen to songs that out right say “I want to fuck you like an animal” rather than “I’ll be all smiles to tonight” I’m a bad person. It doesn’t take much extrapolation to see that those two lyrics mean pretty much the same thing. Is Kitty Welles smiling because she had very pleasant sex and got spooned afterward or because she had an earth shattering orgasm that shook the china off the shelves?

I’m guessing the latter. I’m guessing she took the Lord’s name in vain as she came.

God bless America.