Tonight's State of the Union Drinking Game

Official Itwaslost 2011 State of the Union Drinking Game:

Every time the President says something that makes you thirsty, drink a big gulp of Scottish beer. Go!

Jesus Christ is a Liberal Democrat

"Jesus Christ is a Big Fat Man" has not yet hit the singles charts, but Colbert last night took on the age-old dichotomy of Christ's beliefs vs. Christ's followers' beliefs. (The anti-Socialist Christians clearly haven't read the beginning of Acts, where the apostles set up a hippie commune. Nor, for that matter, basically anything Christ said in red.)

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Jesus Is a Liberal Democrat
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Advent Calendar of Non-Overplayed Christmas Songs No. IX.

The Glee Christmas Special this week had versions of not one but three songs from my not-so-secret playlist mixes of Non-Overplayed Christmas Songs! Generally, they found some of my cheesier selections (like The Carpenters' "Mary Christmas Darling", which neither the original nor the Rachel Berry version will make the cut for this advent calendar.) However, here is Wham's 1984 song "Last Christmas", followed by the version from Glee:

The Glee Christmas album is on iTunes here, including K.D. Lang singing the Grinch song.

The Mimosas' Witnesses Presents: The Late Rue McClanahan's Wild Night In

"He's not the Messiah! He's a very naughty boy!"

From the Huffington Post:

Raj Patel, the author of the recent book "The Value of Nothing," has experienced a bizarre incarnation of the "Colbert Bump" after appearing on "The Colbert Report" in January.

Patel has apparently been discovered by a religious group called "Share International" which awaits the second coming of Buddha in the form of a Messiah they call "Maitreya." The group's religious leader, Benjamin Creme, identified the Maitreya as having been born in 1972, traveled to London from India in 1977, being dark-skinned, and having a stutter. After Raj Patel came on "The Colbert Report," and was described in an article as having briefly stuttered, Creme officially declared that Patel was the group's Messiah.

Patel spoke with Stephen Colbert last night over the phone about his recent Messiah-hood. He called the whole idea "entirely bogus," especially considering his strongly-held belief that we shouldn't rely on religious leaders to make decisions for us, but to think for ourselves. In "The Value of Nothing," Patel urges people to think about the true costs of the things we purchase, and take concrete steps towards changing the world.

That cult was definitely unwise to make Stephen Colbert into their John the Baptist. As a side note, I accidentally wandered into a venue where Benjamin Creme was speaking a few years ago, and I found him to be one of the most boring cult leaders I can imagine. This whole situation eerily reminds me of Monty Python's The Life of Brian, including similarities between the advice that Brian gives after he's chosen & Raj Patel's message.

Brian: Look, you've got it all wrong. You don't need to follow me. You don't need to follow anybody! You've got to think for yourselves! You're all individuals!
The Crowd (in unision): Yes! We are all individuals!

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
I Can't Believe It's Not Buddha - Raj Patel
www.colbertnation.com
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And further similarities:

Brian: I'm not the Messiah! Will you please listen? I am not the Messiah, do you understand? Honestly!
Girl: Only the true Messiah denies His divinity.
Brian: What? Well, what sort of chance does that give me? All right! I am the Messiah!
Followers: He is! He is the Messiah!
Brian: Now, fuck off!
[silence]
Arthur: How shall we fuck off, O Lord?

The King of All Curling Jokes

Awhile ago, this blog ran a segment on Curling Jokes - & it may not surprise you when you learn that one of the top googled phrases leading seekers to this blog in the past year has been "curling jokes." Now it's Winter Olympics time, & there doesn't appear to be anyway to watch it online for free. But I was impressed at last week's The Simpsons for its plethora of curling jokes & also that amazing segment with a dancing cut-out of Homer's upside-down face:

Did you know this existed? The Star Wars Holiday Special

I think George Lucas has attempted to suppress this, the 1978 Star Wars Christmas special. The first ten minutes are mostly in Wookie-ish:

Jon Stewart drops two portmanteaus in thirty seconds

It's already set up to be a grand decade in the development of portmanteaus (Humpty-Dumpty's theory of word-combination & the adaptability of language.) Mere seconds after Jon Stewart dropped "newsfotainment", he coined a second one, asking "Is synergasm a word?"

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Fox News Covers Scott Brown's Victory
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

Twitting the Obama Speech & Glenn Beck's Oligarhy

The CBS news stream of President Barack Obama's Health Care speech had a live-twittering column to the right of the video, so I cautiously waded into the debate:

SSandrigon
@cbsnews He needs to offer a Publican Option for bartenders & Roman contractors. (CBS News live > http://ustre.am/2bWW)
25 minutes ago from Ustream

SSandrigon
@cbsnews And, Obama needs to offer a Glennbic Option for revolutionaries against the oligarhy
20 minutes ago from Ustream

SSandrigon
@cbsnews Finally, Obama needs to offer a Pubic Option for Freudian misspellers.
18 minutes ago from Ustream

I was mentioning that Glenn Beck oligarh-acronym moment to a friend of mine, who had never heard of it, & it occurred to me that with Jon Stewart on vacation, a lot of these amazing cable-news moments get missed by a lot of people. So for our far-flung correspondents in the Balkans & the Navigator's Islands, here's FoxNews's fiery teabagging revolutionary:

Thanks to Andrew Sullivan, where I first saw that clip.

Welcome Obama Babies! goodby Orly Taitz (attorney, dentist, real estate agent)

If you recall, there's always a peak in baby births nine months after a major city power outage. November 4th, there was a similar romance in the air, look how often I got kissed on Valencia Street in San Francisco:



So people were predicting a surge in babies nine months later - which is TODAY! And the amazing thing - today is of course also President Obama's birthday. And just to make everything come full circle, Obama was born on August Fourth, 1961, which means he was born exactly nine months after John F. Kennedy's election victory. (We wrote more about the Kennedy-Obama coincidences in this post: Su Diarrea Diaria). Welcome Obama babies! & into the world, very likely, the woman or man who'll be elected President in 2056.

The bizarre birther Orly Taitz has gotten herself back onto the news networks with a forged Obama Kenyan birth certificate. The birther movement is appropriately reaching its climax on Barack Obama's birthday. People are complaining this woman is getting so much face time on cable, but come on! she's truly terrific. For the sake of our international AUDIENCE what hasn't been following this, here's a recap from Jon Stewart:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
The Born Identity
www.thedailyshow.com

And here's her freak-out on MSNBC yesterday, where she calls the mainstream media "brownshirts". And why was she live from Tel Aviv?

Babies

In honor of the Obama girls naming their new puppy after Bo Diddley, here's "Bo Meets the Monster."

	Bo Diddley - Bo Meets the Monster
	Found at bee mp3 search engine

This Saturday Night Live sketch about Madonna & Angelina adopting "spicy brown babies from crazy places", I keep returning to it, I think it's the funniest skit from that show since Sarah Palin.

You think you know fashion?
Well fashion's a stranger.
You think fashion's your friend, my friend?
Fashion is danger.
-Flight of the Conchords

Videos: World Beard & Mustache Championships; I love Jesus but I drink a little.

Ms Jessica Beer of Portland (pictured to the left conducting a choir of unbearded angels), today on the facebooks, called our attention to two videos. The first is from the 2003 World Beard & Mustache Championships in Carson City, Nevada.

Look! One of the men on the runway is the very mustache I posted below! In response to my "25 Things" note (which I'll probably post here tomorrow), she writes "There are only 107 days left until the World Beard and Moustache Championships. Do you have your ticket to Anchorage yet? http://www.worldbeardchampionships.com/index.html."
The Department of Beards & February Month of the Mustache are bearing so much fruit!

The second video is a fine moment in daytime talkshow history:

Mildly Salacious Ad Banned for Obviousness

In "sports" news, the following entirely appropriate PETA ad was not seen on television yesterday during a "Super" Bowl (overweight millionaires who run for five seconds then stop for a litigious referee or commercial break do not comprise a sport):



Ad text: "Studies show vegetarians have better sex."

Duh! Everyone knows vegetarian men are attentive and vegetarian women are dirty. Is that really news, "football" fans?

2009 Television Review

I had fairly large plans for my belated Christmas week in Lake Tahoe: go skiing, recalibrate my life's direction for the new year, don't drink too much & do my stretches.

Of course I did none of these, all I did was record an earth-shattering debut hip-hop album & watch television. Today I'm taking the No. 5 California Zephyr train West back toward Berkeley, & I leave the blogosphere with several thoughts while I'm on this famously beautiful slow late train.

First thought: Televisions that can rewind & fast forward are completely revolutionary. I thought it was really slick programming. There's also a computer hooked up to my parents' weirdly large tv, so I was able to pause the Daily Show, go onto Netflix an watch an episode of 30 Rock, then go back to Comedy Central, & fast forward thru all the ads. Also, why are there so many commercials for body products? These may seem like mundane observations, but I haven't had a tv since before high school, when my parents had one of those box-shaped thingies that only had like thirty channels.

Second thought: 30 Rock is super high quality comedy, & it's especially good if you watch about twenty-six episodes in a row in one sitting.

Third thought: Don't worry about the Daily Show: they've been joking about how Jan. 20th is the End of Comedy, but one of the writers made some comment about how, with Democrats controlling all three branches of government, they may have to do two shows a day.

Fourth thought: Rep. Barney Frank was on the Rachel Maddow show, & he's hilarious. I had no idea. Also, everyone's been singing Maddow's praises, & it's true that she's charming & witty, but she & a couple of her regulars all talk in the same inflections that Keith Olbermann does - - is MSNBC in some sort of lost fifty-eighth state with its own accent & emphàsises, a televisional subculture of mainstream liberal righteousness? Do they have strawberry zeppelins there? In conclusion, I don't see her as as much of a refreshing break from mainstream talking heady punditry as I've heard her heralded.

Fifth thought: If they had television on the zephyr train, we wouldn't have to stare out the window at the Sierra Nevadas & listen to podcasts...

Sixth thought: I was ugly in Middle School, I found a whole drawer full of embarrassing photos:


On second viewing, it looks like someone's found the ugliest imaginable image of my brother & I & photoshopt it on one of Mr Quill's Siberian photographs. This one, for instance, is like less than two years later, when I got cool again: