When the YouTube video of Michele Bachmann’s husband started circulating, the one that purported to show what a screaming queen he was, it was of such low quality, it was hard to see. Stupid cell phones; is this what killed the Flip? Then I watched it again, and OK, it’s there — he’s the kind of man who throws his hands in the air and wiggles them around as a way of greeting others. Swish, for sure. Gay? Jury might still be out. Then I watched it again, and thought, Nance, you are slipping. Mr. Gay from Gaytown, right there. Population: Him.
I’m embarrassed it took me three viewings to pick it up.
And then this morning I watched the clips from last night’s Daily Show, and hello, Mary. The relevant portions start around 3:30, although you should watch the whole thing, so you can behold the misery etched on the face of one of Dr. Queerton’s “patients,” who went to him (he’s a clinical psychologist) for how-not-to-be-gay therapy. His specialty. Yes, the irony is downright cartoonish, isn’t it? And while I know it helps to laugh at people like this, that laughter is really the only defense possible against such sparkly queens and their enablers, like the Bachmanns, I still get pissed. I’m more aware of the time slipping past every year, but I really, seriously cannot wait until we look at these two, and all their ilk, as the 21st century equivalent of people who sold bleaching creams to black people in the 20th. They aren’t just ridiculous figures, they are evil. Speaking of Satan.
I’ve known gay people who get these sort of mailings from their parents, helpful books and brochures and spiritual advice on how not to be gay, on how to reform and renounce or, if you can’t do that, to simply live a celibate life, as Jesus is calling you to do. I’m pretty sure that even though they’re laughing when they tell me about it later, that they weren’t laughing when they got the mail that day. They likely weren’t laughing at the Thanksgiving table last year, or at Christmas, or whatever. One of them told me that when he came out to his family, his father started going to Mass daily — a daily Communicant, as the good Cat’liks say — to pray for his son’s deliverance from evil.
So no, I can’t laugh at the Bachmanns anymore. Although I do crack a smile, imagining their sex life.
Meanwhile, relationship advice from a gay man. Pretty sane, I’d say. (But language makes it NSFW.)
Looks like we’ve transitioned into the bloggage, then? Let’s hop to it:
So, a friend from way back in the day called the other night, and mentioned going to the Ohio State Fair. Which made me think of Miss Citizen Fair, about which I’ve bored you before, but led me to google the phrase “You are Miss Citizen Fair.” Hit No. 1: Me, in 2007. Hit No. 2: Bob Greene, two years later.
I’m not sure what this means, but it certainly freaked my cheese. We traffic in a certain amount of nostalgia here, but I hope it’s distinct from the Greenian school of Everything Was Better Then. The column linked above is from Bob’s book about the good ol’ days of the newspaper business, when Bob fell in love. In fact…
It was a time when newspapers were still such a fundamental part of everyday American life that there really were too many young women on the fairgrounds who fit the Miss Citizen Fair profile, too many young women for us to narrow down the field.
Too many young women walking around the Ohio State Fair carrying copies of that morning’s local newspaper. It was utterly common: a person at the fair, young or old, carrying the latest edition. It’s what people did: Purchase a paper every day, and carry it around with them.
Yeah, yeah. And men wore coats and ties to a baseball game. We get it.
Emmy nominations today, but nothing for “Treme.” Sorry, Khandi Alexander.
And as the hour grows late, I think I will fly.
jcburns said on July 14, 2011 at 11:04 am
Just want to point out another part of the Citizen-Journal’s vast promotional machine at the State Fair.
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nancy said on July 14, 2011 at 11:06 am
Wow. Up-Style Headlines. I’d Forgotten Those Things Existed, Even Though The Web Has Brought Them Back.
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prospero said on July 14, 2011 at 11:11 am
And men wore hta, nice one mroonz,
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jcburns said on July 14, 2011 at 11:12 am
Stop It!! I was hoping they’d bring back headlines where politicians are referred to by their initials, like ‘HHH’ and ‘LBJ.’ I think Nixon messed that up. BHO met with JAB and EIC over the budget mess while HRC visited European allies and JRB (wow, Joseph Robinette Biden, I did not know) visited an auto plant somewhere. Also, let’s just call the Chinese ‘Reds’ again, on the principle that it makes for a spunky headline.
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Bob (not Greene) said on July 14, 2011 at 11:14 am
What a headline — “STATE FAIR TOP ATTRACTION”. Thanks, newspaper! Just for that, I’ll carry you around lovingly all day at the fair, looking for Little Miss Citizen.
I also loved the closing line of the Bob Greene column — “Even at the fair.”
You can hear the violins swelling, snare drums rolling, the trumpets flourishing and then the whole scene fading to black as the MGM lion roars behind a red white and blue “The End” in old Bob’s brain as he cranked out that one. Ta DA!
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Peter said on July 14, 2011 at 11:25 am
While I’m not questioning your hunch about Mr. Bachmann, how about that picture of Bob Greene in the article you linked? If you didn’t know anything about Bob and saw that photo for the first time…
True Story: Back in the day there was a priest I knew from mutual friends. I asked him once where he was assigned, and he said he was in charge of the Archdiocese’s Gay Ministry. Well, I said, I thought the church wasn’t keen on gay folks, and he said oh no, the church embraces them; it’s homosexual sex the church is against. His job was to go into gay bars and lounges on Clark Street, talk to the patrons, and suggest that they go back to church and stop doing the gay sex stuff.
Me: “That has to be a hard sell”.
Him: “Tell me about it. I think God’s purpose for putting me there is for comic relief”.
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Scout said on July 14, 2011 at 11:40 am
That Jon Stewart clip was hilarious. “Field of Dongs… build it and they will…” Comic genius. And yeah, fo sho, Marcus is a total nelly. Which probably works out just fine, because I suspect Ms One L is frigid, as icy as the blue of her eyes. I’ll bet Obama is laughing his ass off and hoping One L gets the nomination.
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Jeff Borden said on July 14, 2011 at 11:44 am
Agreed on the Bachmanns as hateful shitheels peddling yesterday’s crap. Listening to Marcus lisp through that whole “barbarians who need discipline” phrase is uber-creepy.
I’m no expert on gay lifestyles but if Marcus is a flaming flamer, what’s the story with the five kids he’s had with Mrs. Crazy Eyes? Are they the ultimate in bearding? Or has the poor bastard been thinking if only he had sex with a woman and produced some children, he’d be cured?
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Deborah said on July 14, 2011 at 12:06 pm
I know a heck of a lot of gay men who married and had kids before finally coming out. So the bachmann kids don’t surprise me one bit. Some of them never come out of the closet of course but you can still spot them a mile away.
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alex said on July 14, 2011 at 12:08 pm
[W]hat’s the story with the five kids he’s had with Mrs. Crazy Eyes?
Pfizer’s marketing people would probably tell you over a drink or three that he’s the target demographic for Viagra, with liver-spotted geezers a distant second.
I think Mr. Swish and Mrs. Beard truly are a gift from God. The buzz they’re creating on the national stage can only help to advance the dialogue about gay people and I believe it will foster understanding and compassion like nothing ever before.
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MarkH said on July 14, 2011 at 12:09 pm
Ease up, Bob (NG). This was Columbus, you know. In 1968, after all. Before the CJ went for comic relief from the Dispatch (I suspect). Oh, wait; you probably do know.
My one takeaway from the 2007 NN.C link: I miss Danny. Anyone know what happened to him?
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coozledad said on July 14, 2011 at 12:13 pm
Marcus Oh Realius?
One day one of their kids will write the tell all:
“I was conceived in a four-way between my mom, Marcus Bachmann, a turkey baster and a bodybuilding magazine. I think in some way this begins to explain my attraction to the works of Ayn Rand.”
And I nearly forgot This. By all means scroll down to the pictures.
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Sue said on July 14, 2011 at 12:26 pm
MarkH, I still think of Danny once in awhile and wonder where he went. He disappeared for awhile and then popped in one day to say he wasn’t commenting because he was very busy, and after that, nothing. He did enjoy needling us, that’s for sure. In a (mostly) cheerful way, that is.
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Peter said on July 14, 2011 at 12:29 pm
Thanks for that link, Cooz. Now I can’t get Yakkity Sax out of my head.
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Dave said on July 14, 2011 at 12:32 pm
Miss Citizen Fair, something else I hadn’t thought of in awhile. That is, I thought I hadn’t until I clicked on the link and see that I commented on that back in 2007 and also mentioned that I remembered seeing Johnny Jones riding around the fairgrounds on a golf cart. Johnny Jones, for those who don’t know, was a Columbus Dispatch columnist who wrote, oh gee, not being a writer, I don’t know how to begin to describe his column, I remember it as being all over the place and, if I were to read it today, I’d most likely think it not very good.
Another thing I remember about the C-J is that in the mid to late sixties, possibly as late as seventy or seventy-one, and this has nothing to do with today’s general theme, they had a entertainment columnist or critic for a short time, female, who always wrote as if she was having the most outstanding time, no matter what she did. I’ve no idea what her name was or what became of her but remember having a crush on her, unseen, based on the good time she was having. Do any of the Columbus folks know who she was?
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nancy said on July 14, 2011 at 12:38 pm
Can’t tell you, Dave, but I do remember when they fired their theater critic for plagiarism. Every year the paper sponsored a group trip to New York, for a combination of shopping and theater. The critic went along as escort/ambassador, and reviewed each show as part of a daily story for the folks back home. One year, he lifted chunks of his review from one of those obscure, little-read New York City daily newspapers. It was before the internet, but of course he was caught almost immediately.
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Julie Robinson said on July 14, 2011 at 1:00 pm
How can a person reconcile being gay and hating gay? It’s got to make for misery. For all the brilliance of Jon Stewart and his merry band of writers, it strikes me as pathetic.
But, fortunately there’s Sweet Juniper for a pick-me-up:
http://www.sweet-juniper.com/2011/07/covered-dog-wagon.html
Oh yes he did build a covered wagon for faithful dog Wendell to pull. Adorable.
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jcburns said on July 14, 2011 at 1:02 pm
The C-J had a radio-TV critic named Jo Bradley Reed, who preceded David Drake. Not sure if she was the enthusiastic one.
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Jeff Borden said on July 14, 2011 at 2:06 pm
Speaking of the Bachmanns, Salon is noting that in an appearance on Faux News last night, she mispronounced chutzpah as “shoots-paw.” Lord, she is almost as stupid as SheWho.
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Scout said on July 14, 2011 at 2:13 pm
And here’s the video proof. I never thought I’d say this, but I think One L is even more entertaining than She-Who.
http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2011/07/awkward-language-made-more-awkward-by-bachmann.html
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ROGirl said on July 14, 2011 at 2:15 pm
Marcus Bachmann or Cameron Tucker? You decide.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJMArCUSJUk
I started work this week (yaayyyy), so I don’t get a chance to visit here on a regular basis now.
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mark said on July 14, 2011 at 2:56 pm
I will be quite surprised if increased public exposure for the “flamboyant” Mr. B doesn’t kill his wife’s poll numbers, and presidential bid, in pretty short order. He doesn’t quite fit the conservative image of the first “First Man.”
A good thing, I think, as Bachmann is not qualified for the job.
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prospero said on July 14, 2011 at 3:01 pm
ROGirl, hooray for you. I hope you enjoy your job, work is fun if it’s not drudgery sometimes even when it is. But don’t get lost.
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prospero said on July 14, 2011 at 3:06 pm
Fucking whackjobs.
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prospero said on July 14, 2011 at 3:31 pm
Elect Sarah Palin now. Fuck the government. Fuck the Founding Fathers. When you know the “truth”, fuck the truth. One L will sign off on this as soon as her busy schedule wil allow. she isn’t brown and we These people are more or less dangerous. Total loony bins. And spectacularly stupid.
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prospero said on July 14, 2011 at 3:42 pm
And I’m wrong saying anybody that would vote for this ahole for president should be ydisenfranchised? You can’t be crazier.
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Scout said on July 14, 2011 at 3:45 pm
Well this is interesting. One L has a lesbian sister.
http://gawker.com/5821275/michele-bachmanns-gay-sister-attended-obamas-inauguration
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Julie Robinson said on July 14, 2011 at 3:55 pm
You go, ROGirl! Excellent news.
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MichaelG said on July 14, 2011 at 4:01 pm
Jeez, Alex. Go easy on us poor old liver spotted geezers.
After months of dodging it in favor of the old scanner, the TSA people at Ontario finally stuffed me through the naked machine yesterday. The scanner part wasn’t bad, I didn’t feel my molecules become disassociated or anything and I was still in Ontario when it was over. I don’t suppose the experience was a pleasant one for the observer, wherever he or she was but that’s their problem.
What I hadn’t realized was that when you exit the machine there is a TSA Troll to hold you up until he gets the OK from the observer to let you go. I stood there stupidly for over a minute in front of the mute troll with my feet on the yellow marks. Nobody said a word. Finally the head set spoke to him and he asked me if I had anything metal on my right ankle or calf.
“No.” I told him. I badly wanted to make some kind of stupid remark but figured I had better keep quiet. The guy behind me in line was grinning and rolling his eyes. So the troll squatted and vigorously massaged my leg with his purple gloved hands from mid thigh to the top of my shoe.
“OK, you’re good to go.”
I could have told him that.
If the sample I experienced is any indication, I can certainly see why people are livid at being exposed to a full body TSA “pat down”. It would truly leave anyone shaken.
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prospero said on July 14, 2011 at 4:12 pm
Pete rose may have been a hitter, but he was never a baseball player. He was, and remains, a supreme asshole. There is no way getting around what a twat that asshole is. Disgraceful piece of shit.
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brian stouder said on July 14, 2011 at 4:13 pm
Pete rose may have been a hitter…
Agreed!
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alex said on July 14, 2011 at 4:13 pm
I will be quite surprised if increased public exposure for the “flamboyant” Mr. B doesn’t kill his wife’s poll numbers, and presidential bid, in pretty short order.
Mark, for once I might actually be inclined to agree with you, except that if you’ll recall, Fort Wayne not too long ago had a flamboyant far-right mayoral candidate and it didn’t cost him anything with the true believers. As long as he talked their talk he probably could have put on a wig and falsies and long red nails and they wouldn’t have cared. What brought him down was the defection of the Republican establishment because he was an unelectable putz, and that is more than likely what will happen with La Bachmann as well.
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MarkH said on July 14, 2011 at 4:46 pm
“…but he was never a baseball player.”
Prospero, please.
I grew up in Cincinnati after moving there from Pittsburgh in time for Rose’s second pro season. Watched him LOTS of times at Crosley Field and Riverfront and saw “Charlie Hustle” ridiculed even then. I’ll leave aside the arguments about his character and just say that I do know what he was not: a natural athlete. Things like running out a walk, running any time he didn’t have to, unnecessary aggressiveness (Harrelson) were all compensation for lack of natural ability. Account after account has been written about how he was brought up, how his dad pushed and hounded (hell, maybe tortured) him to athletic excellence. He had to work harder than everyone else to get to the majors and he knew it. And yes, as a person, he was (is) rude, crude, beligerent, liked only by his posse.
Athletic accomplishments will always be argued and parsed. But his lousy character should in no way deflate Rose’s stats any more than Ty Cobb’s general a-hole nature takes away from his.
I’m no raving Pete Rose fan, but, just sayin’.
EDIT — Kirk, you’re a baseball fan and watched the Reds and Rose as long as I have. Your take?
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Peter said on July 14, 2011 at 5:23 pm
Prospero – just asking, although I completely agree with you about Pete Rose, was this off topic, a random observation, or did I miss a connection with Mr. Bachmann? Sometimes I miss connecting the dots….
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Dexter said on July 14, 2011 at 5:54 pm
In the old days when all but the cheap sonsabitches bought a daily newspaper and either left it on the break room table or saved it in their personal space (tool box, locker) to take home and give it a thorough read before lining the bird cage ), more than a few guys would take it into the john with them, and leave it there, almost always just a section at a time, so the next guy into the stall would have the option to read today’s sports or front page, or disgustedly kick the filthy toilet-read paper out under the stall door.
Would you read a shithouse-read newspaper, or be too disgusted to touch the filthy thing?
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nancy said on July 14, 2011 at 5:57 pm
Newspaper columnists are fond of saying they’d rather have their work clipped and stuck to refrigerators than bore college sophomores of the following generation, but once I had a column framed and hung over a restroom urinal in a bar. It was about how patrons had foiled a would-be armed robber. I was always touched by that one.
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Dexter said on July 14, 2011 at 6:07 pm
It might have been The Berghoff Men’s Bar (later just called the bar at The Berghoff) where I saw the current papers of Chicago framed above the urinals, and changed every edition.
To have a column on permanent exhibit status framed above a urinal is high honor.
In the days of Chicago Today and all their daily editions and all the green streak and blue streak editions of all the other dailies, circa 1969, I remember wading through discarded newspapers which were mixed with spilled beer and sticky cola and having to kick newspapers off my shoes after leaving packed Wrigley Field after a baseball game. I would not pick up an abandoned newspaper on the el because I knew by the time I got off the train a later edition would be for sale at the subway / el stop. It was heady stuff for a young newspaper lover.
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prospero said on July 14, 2011 at 6:21 pm
The piling on of Barry Bonds is ludicrous, He;s as great a ballplayer as ever lived, if somebody is a sure juicer, it is Charlie Hustle. His head is bigger than Barrt Bonds. And his hair is falling out. Mr. Steroids.
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nancy said on July 14, 2011 at 6:22 pm
We stopped in a restaurant in Mt. Pleasant that did that. They had one urinal placed closer to the floor, for boys. That one had a frame, too; they had the comics in it. So cute.
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prospero said on July 14, 2011 at 7:02 pm
Michele Bachmnn’s hubby. Beyond bizarre. If there was ever a baseball player more disgusting than Pete Rosem let’s here it. He was the worst fielder wherever he was stashed anybody could imagine, He was horrible. Fucking atrocious. nd anybody that thinks this dickhhad lives ub the same universe with Ichiro is a moron, Ichiro is agreat ballplayer, Pete could hit, And he was a serious libility at no mtter which position. He sucked. He was a butcher with a glove.
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Bitter Scribe said on July 14, 2011 at 8:13 pm
That picture of Bob Greene makes me want to grab the biggest broom I can find and just swat that dead animal off his head.
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Joe Kobiela said on July 14, 2011 at 9:11 pm
Dexter and Nancy
Tri-State aero in Evensville has the daily paper over the urinal and Tac-air in Lexington has t.v. monitors with espn playing over the urinal. Will be in Youngstown Ohio on the south side of town around 7:30am Friday, anyone know a good spot for breakfast?? Also there is a open house at the Auburn Airport Saturday morning. Pancake breakfast, airplane rides, I will be sitting out with my twin cessna, I think 3284m will be the number, if your in the area stop by and say hi, we can talk about evil corporate jets.(just kidding about the jets)
Pilot Joe
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Dave said on July 14, 2011 at 9:37 pm
There’s always a chance my late sixties columnist crush was a Dispatch columnist, time and age may be misleading me. What I do feel certain about is that she wasn’t there very long.
There was a time you could always count on finding a newspaper somewhere stuffed away where I worked. That, like many other things, changed drastically over time, and some of the younger crowd I worked with toward the end made me wonder if they had any interest at all in anything outside their own little worlds. Perhaps it had always been that way but I didn’t realize it when I was younger. Thank goodness, it wasn’t all of them.
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moe99 said on July 15, 2011 at 12:08 am
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w65menUWLIY
Genius. Sheer genius.
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Dexter said on July 15, 2011 at 12:55 am
Sgt. Petry and his Medal Of Honor and his bionic hand were featured on Jon Stewart tonight and on a seg w/ Brian Williams a couple days ago.
Sgt. Petry had two tours in Iraq and SIX tours in Afghanistan, including one tour with his robot hand.
In my army daze, I heard how some guys would shoot off a toe or a finger to get sent home. Now we have soldiers with prosthetics fighting our battles. Does this make you feel good? I suppose it’s alright , since modern science has made such great strides.
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ROGirl said on July 15, 2011 at 7:06 am
My favorite new word is chootspa. It’s where Jewish women go for their ritual choot cleansing.
http://gawker.com/5821224/michele-bachmanns-devastating-command-of-yiddish
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Dexter said on July 15, 2011 at 8:24 am
ROGirl, I am about as far-removed from the Jewish culture and Yiddish as a man could be, but that zinger by this cretin had me jaw-open and cringing. What a maroon!
Jon Stewart’s take was hilarious.
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coozledad said on July 15, 2011 at 9:32 am
These people were born to wander the earth in beater cars and rob liquor stores while dangling a baby from the tit.
To Republicans, that spells guvnah:
http://wonkette.com/449488/oklahomas-first-daughter-does-sexxxy-fashion-shoot-in-governors-mansion#more-449488
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