Dear Stephen Colbert,
I love you.You may ravish me whenever you like. What can I say? Your mocking of Sarah Palin, the whore of the nations, has me kind of infatuated with you this morning.
XOXOX Grant
| The Colbert Report | Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
| Sarah Palin Uses a Hand-O-Prompter | ||||
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I am so excited! Yesterday Stacie and I saw the first promo for the new Top Model season. It's almost here!
Their performance at the Grammy's last night was magical. It seems like "Speechless" and "Your Song" were meant for eachother.
Twenty-two years ago today the Stacie Child was born. I like to remind my little sister Stacie that I remember the exact day she was born, but I wish I had known twenty-two years ago how important she would be in my life. Here are just a few of the countless reasons why I am glad the Stacie Child is a part of my life. 
- Considering Stacie is a Haws, she turned out remarkably normal. Seriously, this kid is incredibly level-headed, and it is often her job to be my voice of reason and to tell me to take my craziness down a notch. Stacie is also one of those people that truly wants to do the right thing in every situation. She sets an incredible example for me of Christ-like love. 
- Teasing Stacie is perhaps Kevin and my favorite past-time. Stacie believes we have actual planning session to plot our teasing. I love it though when she tries to turn the teasing around on someone else, like on Wednesday when she planned to secretly tell our Tucano's waiter that I was a vegetarian so that no one would offer me any meat. I wish I could have imitated her high-pitched whine when I found out. 
Many are calling it Obama descending into the "lions' den", but whatever you want to call it, today was hopefully a turning point in the Obama administration. Here's what happened: Obama agreed to meet with House Republicans but asked that cameras be present to broadcast the proceedings. It ended up being 90 minutes of Obama refuting the Republicans' claims and their political tactics. I've been watching clips of what went down and I was scanning through what various news sources wrote about what happened...and even from the jaded outlook of Faux News, it looks like the kind of thing Republicans shouldn't have allowed cameras for. Definitely not the right's best hour.
However Andrew Sullivan from The Daily Dish explained it best:
"I've just watched the president address the Republican retreat in Baltimore. Address is not quite the right word, because it was a genuine - and remarkable - conversation between Obama and his political opponents - transparently on CSPAN. I don't remember similar public events of this length and this informality and candor in the past, but I may be forgetting some. But the theme was very straightforward: the president does not expect total GOP support on everything he is trying to do; but he does believe that the tactical oppositionism and electioneering that infects our current politics is making it impossible for the republic to grapple with the real and pressing problems we face."
Hopefully this is a new start for the administration, one where they have guts and stand up against Republican extremist propaganda, but are also able to diffuse the venom of the right with honest conversation.
Sometimes I understand political apathy. I abhor the Republican Party and the Democratic Party is annoying me. I wish we had a viable, mainstream third party with a moderate amount of common sense and a set of balls.
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Blues Clueless | ||||
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I have a handful of random thoughts, all relating to TV shows or movies, and I decided to vomit them onto my blog for your viewing pleaure.
- The red team (Melissa and Lance) on The Biggest Loser are making me SO ANGRY! It's like Tracy from Season 8 all over again. It seems to be mostly Melissa - Lance is just the frightened husband. Like with Tracy, I find myself thinking angry thoughts and wishing I could send them a box of cookies to stop their weight loss dreams.
- What's up with Jersey Shore? Suddenly that show is all over the place (and by that I mainly mean PerezHilton.com). I've seen a few clips of it while watching The Soup...and if I wanted to watch a bunch of white trash douchebags, I am sure I could find some locally.
- Heidi Montag only got so many plastic surgeries so that she keep up the publicity. It's hard to a famous-for-nothing celebrity. Let's just not pay attention and maybe her, Spencer, and his freaky flesh-colored beard will fade back into the obscurity from whence they came.
- And team...finally, I have a confession. Those of you who know me personally are already aware of this, but here we go: I don't like Sandra Bullock. I know, I know. Delete me as a Facebook friend now. But here is why: She essentially plays the same character in every movie (like Jennifer Aniston) and yeah, The Blind Side may have been good, but I am pretty sure whoever played her character would be up for the same awards. She lucked into a good script. And yes, The Proposal may have been good, but that was because Ryan Reynolds is unbelievably hot...it had little to do with her. I don't hate her, but I am going to be ticked if she wins an Oscar and Meryl Streep or Gabourey Sidibe don't. Ugh.
Jeez...I need to get a hobby.
I love Betty White, she was my favorite Golden Girl, and last night at the SAG awards she was HILARIOUS when accepting her lifetime achievement award.
So it's another early morning and I'm no closer to getting any sleep tonight (despite 5 Tylenol PM's as well...I think 5...eeks). And when it gets to this point in the morning I have to face the decision whether I should keep trying to go to sleep, or if I should just stay up because sometimes even I do fall asleep I'll wake up more tired than I would have been just staying up. At that point I feel like doing this through the streets of Provo:
The last few weeks have been especially insomnia-laden, which I have probably mentioned before. And some nights I get frustrated because my body will be exhausted but my mind won't shut off...but then from time to time I will have a night like tonight where I feel wired and I spend hours doing random nonsense. Tonight I've spent three hours watching music videos on Youtube, and I was reminded of how much I love this song. Yes, I know it is country...but it is still fun and I love it. "Fancy" by Reba McEntire is the song I am chilling to this early Thursday morning.
This past week I read The 19th Wife by David Ebershoff. It is basically two stories, the first being that of Ann Eliza Young who was Brigham Young's 19th wife. And the second story is about a gay guy that grew up in a present day polygamist community in southern Utah, who is kicked out at the age of fourteen, but then hears nothing from the community until his father is murdered and the sister wives are accusing this guy's mother of doing it. The chapters alternate between the two stories, eventually interweaving and enlightening readers on the complex nature of faith and religion. My friend Erin Crane told me I needed to read it because it was chalk-full of naughtiness and she wasn't kidding.
I must say, it was one of the most riveting books I've read in a while. Perhaps because I'm mixed up in a present-day Mormon controversy which is the status of homosexuals in the Church. The parallels between the two were easy to see, especially with one of the main characters himself being gay and at one point his meeting a former member of the mainstream Mormon church who is also gay. One of the issues continually brought up in the book is how members in the early church, as well as polygamists now, could reconcile themselves into a point where they accepted the practice. Even more so, it was about limits of faith, and where some people draw the line and where others become fanatics, taking religious beliefs to dangerous new levels.
I guess I am writing about the book because I think it would be a good read for any gay Mormon. It is presented as historical fiction, although the story of the actual Ann Eliza Young is not fiction, but that will bring up a lot of issues since at certain points Brigham Young is presented in a less than favorable light at times- which you may not be okay with. However, there is an entire chapter set from Brigham Young's perspective where he get's his say in the cause of the demise of his marriage to Ann Eliza. But I promise, the book is fair and I wouldn't classify it as "anti-Mormon"...it's just not something you'll be finding at Deseret Book. It seems to present both sides and then return to the point that you as the reader are the only one that can decide how you feel about what actually occurred. As Ann Eliza's son Lorenzo later says, "The truth lies somewhere in between, but isn't that always the case?"
Gavin Newsom, the mayor of San Francisco, commented on President Obama's gay rights record during his first year in office and had this to say:
"I want him to succeed. But I am very upset by what he's not done in terms of rights of gays and lesbians. I understand it tactically in a campaign, but at this point I don't know. There is some belief that he actually doesn't believe in same-sex marriage. But it's fundamentally inexcusable for a member of the Democratic party to stand on the principle that separate is now equal, but only on the basis of sexual orientation. We've always fought for the rights of minorities and against the whims of majorities."
I completely agree, if Obama was a Republican I wouldn't be surprised by his non-existent support for gay rights and his seeming approval for "separate but equal"...but Obama is a Democrat, and as such, I feel like we need to be harder on him because he was elected to protect our rights. (Not that we give Republicans a free pass - I'm just saying we're not expecting their support.)
The article continues: "[Newsom] said the promise of Obama sparking an 'organic movement' has faded and 'there’s a growing discontent and lack of enthusiasm that I worry about. He should just stand on principle, put this behind him and move on.'"
There is a lot of talk today about what the Brown election in Massachussetts means for the country and for the Democratic Party, and to me it means that Democrats were elected to be liberals, and if they aren't willing to do that, don't expect support in the voting booth. Obama may have only been in an office for a year, but he needs to kick it up a notch if he's expecting any kind of support in 2012. I'm one gay guy that won't be supporting Obama if he doesn't support me.
I'm not going to lie, the last 24 hours in Grant's insomnia-laden world have been pretty out there. (Actually the whole last week and a half has been weird, but especially the last 24 hours.) I felt bad for everyone in my world today, especially my coworkers, who had to put up with me. Some days I feel like I need to hand out disclaimers to everyone I come into contact with. Something to the effect of: Beware, this guy is nuts. Like really, he's a hot mess.
And on those days, "Lunacy Fringe" by The Used plays in the background of my thoughts.
I'm so far gone now
I've been running on empty
Im so far gone now
Do you wanna take me on?
I rarely contemplate ever settling down and having a house of my own, but if I was going to do it I would want one of these tiny houses. And I'd have it out in the woods so I could be Crazy Old Man Haws.
Some days I hate religion. "Reverend" Pat Robertson was ranting the other day about how Haiti was wicked and thus deserved the catastrophic earthquake. Which is weird because last time I checked earthquakes were caused by moving tectonic plates, not pacts with the devil. And of course, Rush Limbaugh also joined Pat Robertson in talking out of his butt and accusing Obama of using Haiti to propel communism.
Here are what was said by the two poor excuses for human beings:
Of course, there has been incredible fall-out with these statements, and hopefully there is more to get these dickwads to finally be off the air. Here are some of my favorites responses:
"For anybody of faith, even if you're not God, Pat Robertson is giving religion a terribly bad name, again and again. Remember, this is not the first time. Remember after 9/11, when he blamed 9/11 on the ACLU, and People For The American Way, and gay people. So there's a pattern here of blaming every disaster on something other than what actually happened." - Arianna Huffington
Sarah Palin has joined the equally out-of-touch and delusional folks at Faux News. Last night was her debut and listening to this lady ramble was like getting an abortion for my ear. I heard an old man last night in the checkout stand at the grocery store talking about needing to rush home to watch the O'Reilly Factor. He then told the checker that liberals don't like Palin because she's a smart woman. Hmmm...that's not quite it. We don't like her because she is delusional crone with a severe persecution complex and a tendency to being a pathological liar. Any criticism of her is considered a sexist attack and any argument she makes is utter conservative nonsense. It's not like we understand her viewpoint and disagree with it. It's more of being unsure she is present with us in a mental stability sense. Ugh...Fox News just took another step out of reality. Not surprised by this from the "Fair and Balanced" network...but annoyed all the same.
