Sunday, November 21, 2010

Things in the West You Should See:

Devil's Tower

Friday, November 12, 2010

Today In Facial Hair

Here are two facial-hair-relate posts to help you get in the spirit of giving for Movemeber.  You can donate to Alan's page by clicking the widget on the side of this page.  Click the bottom image for a beard vid that is by far worth at least $5!





Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Al B. Sure-- The Mustache to End All Mustaches

Or, well see.  In case you didn't know, Alan is in the Movember Mustache drive, raising money for Donor's Choose.  This is a great organization that allows teachers to supplement their funding by creating project proposal requests.  Then you can donate to projects that you think are worthwhile.  The most worthwhile this month is Alan (Al B. Sure)'s mustache page.  You should give.  These famous mustaches approve this message.



Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Thank You, West Virginia


From http://www.thesmokinggun.com

Meet Melissa Lee Williams. The West Virginia woman, 41, is facing assault and weapons charges after allegedly waving a knife at two men who declined her demands to engage in sexual conduct at a West Virginia motor inn.

The October 22 incident is detailed in an amusing/gross Jackson County Sheriff’s Department report excerpted here.

According to investigators, Williams--who lives four doors down from her estranged husband at the 77 Motor Inn--showed up at his door and asked Danny Williams and another man to “eat my pussy.” At this point, Williams, pictured in the mug shot at right, “commenced to undress herself,” reported Deputy Ross Mellinger.

While Danny Williams “declined said invitation,” the other man, Adam Watson, told cops that he “agreed to perform at her request.” However, as Watson approached Williams, “he became overwhelmed by horrible vaginal odor emitting from Melissa Williams.” Watson, understandably, “declined to proceed any further.”

This is when Melissa Williams allegedly “produced a lock-back folding knife,” opened it, and pointed the weapon at her estranged husband. She then reportedly uttered a line never before memorialized in a police report: “Somebody is going to eat my pussy or I’m going to cut your fucking throat.”

When Deputy Mellinger arrived on the scene he observed Williams--who, like the two men, appeared to be intoxicated--nude from the waist down. After pocketing a knife that was on the coffee table in front of Williams, Mellinger arrested her for domestic assault and brandishing a deadly weapon.

Williams, who was released from jail after posting $3000 bond, is next due in Jackson County Magistrate Court on February 16.

Monday, November 1, 2010

Sanity Vs. Fear... Was I Really There?

LUB...SQL
The Dude!
Saturday was, I am fairly certain, the largest crowd I have ever been a part of.  The estimates said 215,00 people, which seems pretty much underestimated to me.  Then I thought about that being every person that lives in my home county (Wha!  Yellowstone, MT!) gathered on the mall in D.C. and it seems right.  I mean... that's a lot of people.
But, the fact is that I waited in a line almost a mile long just to get on the Metro, and well... look at the pics and tell me what you think.  Easily there could have been more.
As Do I!
I wont recap, because you can really watch everything on TV or the web... which I am hoping to do soon, so here are my pictures of the rally (you can see some cool photos I didn't take) and some cool vids (I didn't take). It was oddly entertaining and, yet, inspiring.  I can't wait to see what is was like from the TV perspective!


And now I thought we might have a moment, however brief, for some sincerity. If that's okay - I know that there are boundaries for a comedian / pundit / talker guy, and I'm sure that I'll find out tomorrow how I have violated them.

So, uh, what exactly was this? I can't control what people think this was: I can only tell you my intentions.
Totes Agree!
This was not a rally to ridicule people of faith, or people of activism, or look down our noses at the heartland, or passionate argument, or to suggest that times are not difficult and that we have nothing to fear--they are, and we do.
But we live now in hard times, not end times. And we can have animus, and not be enemies. But unfortunately, one of our main tools in delineating the two broke.
The country's 24-hour, political pundit perpetual panic conflictinator did not cause our problems, but its existence makes solving them that much harder. The press can hold its magnifying glass up to our problems, bringing them into focus, illuminating issues heretofore unseen. Or they can use that magnifying glass to light ants on fire, and then perhaps host a week of shows on the dangerous, unexpected flaming ants epidemic. If we amplify everything, we hear nothing.
There are terrorists, and racists, and Stalinists, and theocrats, but those are titles that must be earned! You must have the resume! Not being able to distinguish between real racists and Tea Party-ers, or real bigots and Juan Williams or Rick Sanchez is an insult--not only to those people, but to the racists themselves, who have put in the exhausting effort it takes to hate. Just as the inability to distinguish terrorists from Muslims makes us less safe, not more.
The press is our immune system. If it overreacts to everything, we actually get sicker--and, perhaps, eczema. And yet... I feel good. Strangely, calmly, good. Because the image of Americans that is reflected back to us by our political and media process is false. It is us, through a funhouse mirror--and not the good kind that makes you look slim in the waist, and maybe taller, but the kind where you have a giant forehead, and an ass shaped like a month-old pumpkin, and one eyeball.
So why would we work together? Why would you reach across the aisle, to a pumpkin-assed forehead eyeball monster? If the picture of us were true, of course our inability to solve problems would actually be quite sane and reasonable--why would you work with Marxists actively subverting our Constitution, and homophobes who see no one's humanity but their own?
We hear every damned day about how fragile our country is, on the brink of catastrophe, torn by polarizing hate, and how it's a shame that we can't work together to get things done. The truth is, we do! We work together to get things done every damned day! The only place we don't is here (in Washington) or on cable TV!
But Americans don't live here, or on cable TV. Where we live, our values and principles form the foundation that sustains us while we get things done--not the barriers that prevent us from getting things done.
Most Americans don't live their lives solely as Democrats, Republicans, liberals or conservatives. Americans live their lives more as people that are just a little bit late for something they have to do. Often something they do not want to do! But they do it. Impossible things, every day, that are only made possible through the little, reasonable compromises we all make.
(Points to video screen, showing video of cars in traffic.) Look on the screen. This is where we are, this is who we are. These cars. That's a schoolteacher who probably think his taxes are too high, he's going to work. There's another car, a woman with two small kids, can't really think about anything else right now... A lady's in the NRA, loves Oprah. There's another car, an investment banker, gay, also likes Oprah. Another car's a Latino carpenter; another car, a fundamentalist vacuum salesman. Atheist obstetrician. Mormon Jay-Z fan.
But this is us. Every one of the cars that you see is filled with individuals of strong belief, and principles they hold dear--often principles and beliefs in direct opposition to their fellow travelers'. And yet, these millions of cars must somehow find a way to squeeze, one by one, into a mile-long, 30-foot-wide tunnel, carved underneath a mighty river.
And they do it, concession by concession: you go, then I'll go. You go, then I'll go. You go, then I'll go. 'Oh my God--is that an NRA sticker on your car?' 'Is that an Obama sticker on your car?' It's okay--you go, then I go.
And sure, at some point, there will be a selfish jerk who zips up the shoulder, and cuts in at the last minute. But that individual is rare, and he is scorned, and he is not hired as an analyst!
Because we know, instinctively, as a people, that if we are to get through the darkness and back into the light, we have to work together. And the truth is there will always be darkness, and sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel isn't the promised land.
Sometimes, it's just New Jersey.
Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear
Jon and Stephen - Stephen’s Fearful Entrance
www.comedycentral.com
Rally to Restore Sainty and/or FearThe Daily ShowThe Colbert Report