From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
sunday Sunday SUNDAY!!!!!
The place: New York!
The time: Midnight 'til Forever
Town halls? Open!
Clerk's offices? Open!
Judges? Robed and ready!
NYC Mayor Bloomberg? Officiating!
Niagara Falls? FIRST!
Avenue Q's Ricky and Rod at City Hall? With bells on!
Gay couples! Marriage certificates! Rings! Weddings! "Til death us do part's"! Tears! Laughter! Receptions! Cake! Dancing!
Armageddon? Doubtful!
Plagues of locusts? Only in Maggie Gallagher's bloomers!
Destruction of the "institution" of marriage? Get real!
Equality? Now yer talkin'!
NY wedding-related Businesses? Ch'ching! Ch'ching! Ch'ching!
NY lawmakers who voted 'Yes'? Thank you!
Open and affirming churches and synagogues? Love you!
Fred Phelps protestors? Screw you!
Tapping on champagne glasses? [Ting Ting Ting Ting Ting!]
Happy-couple smooches? [Applause!]
Do it again? [Ting Ting Ting Ting Ting!]
Happy couple blushes? Awww.
A blender? Sweet!
Another blender? Nice.
Another blender? Oh.
Another blender? "Ma! Come grab a blender, we got four!"
DJ? Check!
Tin cans tied to bumpers? Check!
Garters? Bouquets? Check! Check!
Honeymoon suites with Jacuzzis? Bubble Bubble!
And this comment from brooklynbadboy, posted in Clarknt67's must-read diary, New York Braces For The Rainbow Crush:
Everything is booked. Everything. Gotham Hall. The Rainbow Room. Cipriani. You name it, its fucking booked. I know because my friends are getting married and theyre fucking freaking out they'll be stuck in the back at BBQ's in Downtown Brooklyn. REALLY Ghetto.
I love this place Nice Martin on the Upper West Side. Provincal style food. They called. Booked. I then recommended Dylan Prime in Tribeca. Booked.
It's going to be one helluva Sunday, for sure!
And now, a Friday night C&J toast to all the soon-to-be-hitched couples who, starting Sunday, will become both legally-married spouses and living history:
[Clinky Dinky!]
Mazel Tov, Congratulations and Cheers! Hot damn, your day is finally here!
Your west coast-friendly edition of Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Friday, July 22, 2011
Note: Never forget, America: Republicans invented the punch clock, Democrats invented the weekend.
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til Captain America: 0!!!!!
Days `til the 4th annual Petaluma Music Festival in California: 15
Decrease in U.S. mortgage debt between Jan.-March: $100 billion
Current mortgage debt: $10.3 trillion
(Source: USA Today via The Week)
Percent chance that the image of Jesus Christ on this Wal-Mart receipt actually turned out to be Freddy Krueger: 100%
Amount Tea Party Nation skipped out on when it booked and then cancelled its 2010 convention in Las Vegas: $600,000
(Source: Great Orange Satan)
Temperature at 3pm in Portland Maine: 101°
(Source: Flashing Time & Temperature sign in Monument Square)
Ocean temperature: 61°
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Story of my life…
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CHEERS to insane amounts of money. This is what Bernie Sanders' insistence on auditing the Federal Reserve hath wrought. Ready to shit yer britches? Okay, then: 16 TRILLION bucks to banks and corporations:
"This is a clear case of socialism for the rich and rugged, you're-on-your-own individualism for everyone else." Among the investigation's key findings is that the Fed unilaterally provided trillions of dollars in financial assistance to foreign banks and corporations from South Korea to Scotland, according to the GAO report. "No agency of the United States government should be allowed to bail out a foreign bank or corporation without the direct approval of Congress and the president," Sanders said. […]
The investigation also revealed that the Fed outsourced most of its emergency lending programs to private contractors, many of which also were recipients of extremely low-interest and then-secret loans.
Also: six staplers apparently just up and walked out of the supply closet and disappeared into thin air. Hence the "CHOCOLATE PUDDING FRIDAY HAS BEEN CANCELLED UNTIL FURTHER NOTCE" sign in the break room. (Psst! Bernie! Check Gladys's eBay account. Signed, a little birdy.)
CHEERS to getting the last laugh on a no-good, horrible, low-down scumbucket boss. Working America's "My Bad Boss" contest is in the semi-final stage and, as you’d expect, there are some real horror stories. One of the contestants is the daughter of a much-loved Kossack (contest rules require anonymity, so that's as much as I can say), and if the C&J community can add a few dozen votes for her, she could win all the marbles (meaning a much-needed vacation). Here's her story:
I had just returned to work at a corporate coffee shop after having a heart surgery and a subsequent hospitalization for my heart, and about half a day in, I felt my heart strained again. The heart problem I got hospitalized for is literally life or death, so when I felt the symptoms arise again I called an ambulance immediately.
In the ambulance, my boss called me several times, threatening to fire me because I was unable to do my job. She continued to keep calling me, specifically harassing me about how my health problems were causing scheduling problems for the business, until my mother picked up my phone in the ER and told her to leave me alone. (She didn't). A few weeks later, I returned to work, and weeks later the entire coffee shop lost their health insurance---we were given twelve hours' notice until it lapsed. When I put my two weeks' in a month later, my boss was astonished and said to me, "What am I supposed to do?" Which was the exact same thing I've been saying to my stacks of medical bills for years now.
Lovely, huh? If you have a moment---and that's all the time it takes---to cast a vote for [Beloved Kossack's daughter], click here and extend an online middle-finger salute to her former boss. But gently---I clicked so hard my finger went through my mouse. And through the couch. And into the hardwood floor. And then the downstairs neighbors grabbed a ladder, climbed up to the ceiling and painted a smiley face on it. You can read tomorrow's police blotter for the rest.
P.S. For the record, I didn’t submit an entry in the Bad Boss contest because my bosses are thoughtful and considerate in every way. I mean, good gracious---you even got me a shock collar that matches my eyes!
CHEERS to nabbing the #1 gangsta. On July 22, 1934, John Dillinger was gunned down after watching a movie at Chicago's Biograph Theatre. His final words: "Agghh!! The pain!! It hurts!!" Same thing people say today when they leave theatres showing The Undefeated.
JEERS to the continuing distraction from job creation. Day 4 of our daily updates on the debt crisis, and here's the latest. The debt crisis---which is not a crisis at all---will continue until 11:59 pm on August 1, 2011, when the debt ceiling is raised and Republicans totally forget about it and move on to the next ginned-up fake crisis. In the meantime, here's a fake fun fact: I'm working on a wallet that can be unfurled into a condom. That way, if you forget to put a condom in your wallet, you can just whip out your wallet and---Presto---it's a condom! I call it The Wallet Condom. Patent pending.
CHEERS to purty rhymin' wurds. On this date in 1893, Katherine Lee Bates---a college-educated, latte-slurping Cape Cod liberal elitist---wrote the poem America the Beautiful after visiting Pikes Peak. It was later set to the hymn "Materna" by Samuel Ward. But only because the guy who wrote "I Have A Lovely Bunch of Coconuts" insisted on more cowbell.
JEERS to violence where you least expect it. Oh, fer god's sake…now someone's setting off bombs…and shooting up a youth camp…in friggin' Norway??? To paraphrase Tom Hanks: "There is no bombing or shooting in NORWAY!!!" Unbelievable. Officials say it's “really unclear” who did it. But they've narrowed it down to assholes, dickheads and scumbags.
CHEERS to the man who wanted to be #43. Happy 88th birthday to Bob Dole. Perhaps the best thing he ever said was:
"If you're hanging around with nothing to do and the zoo is closed, come over to the Senate. You'll get the same kind of feeling and you won't have to pay."
And if the Senate's closed, the House is right next door. (But please don't feed the teabaggers---it just encourages them to stick around.)
CHEERS to home vegetation. Attention shall be paid to the mighty picture box this weekend...mainly because our mighty air conditioner is sitting in the window right next to it. On HBO's Real Time, Bill Maher welcomes money man Martin Lewis, John Turturro (awesome!), Donna Brazile, Reason.com's Nick Gillespie and Braddock, PA mayor and Netroots Nation '09 speaker John Fetterman (double awesome!). My beloved Red Sox will perform their signature move on Seattle: winning. (Ha Ha Ha! I kid. Not.) Sunday evening, 60 Minutes gives gay thrillseekers a shiver up their spine when they combine Anderson Cooper and sharks. And here's your Sunday morning lineup, with C&J's EXCLUSIVE Number of Truly Exciting and/or Worth-Listening-to Guests (TE a/o WLT) Index:
Meet the Press: White House chief of staff Bill Daley; Sen. Tom Coburn; roundtable with Andrea Mitchell, Newark Mayor Cory Booker, former Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE), tea party asshole Something Kinzinger (IL), Doris Kearns Goodwin. TE a/o WLT Index: 2 (Booker, Goodwin)
This Week: Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner (D-Goldman Sachs); former Sens. Tom Daschle (D-SD) and Trent "Foot-in-Mouth" Lott (R-MS) on the lack of Kum by Yah in the upper chamber (of horrors); roundtable with George Will, Alice Rivlin, Arianna Huffington, some guy from Fox Business Channel (I guess all the ABC business reporters were busy); ABC correspondent Lama Hasan on the drought in the Horn of Africa. And look! Christiane Amanpour has installed a lovely little "Countdown to U.S. Default" ticker. Yeah---that's real helpful. TE a/o WLT Index: 2 (Rivlin, Hasan)
Face the Nation: Bill Daley again; Sens. Dick Durbin (D-IL), Mark Warner (DINO-VA), Jon Kyl (R-AZ), Saxby Chambliss (R-GA). TE a/o WLT Index: 0
Washington Week: All things debt-ceiling related with Jackie Calmes of The New York Times, Naftali Bendavid of The Wall Street Journal, and Dan Balz of The Washington Post. John Harwood of CNBC and The New York Times looks at the Republican nomination landscape. TE a/o WLT Index: 0
Fox GOP Talking Points Sunday: Treasury Sec. Tim Geithner (D-Goldman Sachs); Nutjob Rep. Joe Walsh (TEA-IL) and beloved American icon of truth, justice and common sense Rep. Donna Edwards (D-MD) Index: 1 (Future-president Edwards)
Number of exciting or worth-listening-to guests: 5 out of 192. Wow---higher than usual. Happy viewing!
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Five years ago in C&J: July 22, 2006
CHEERS to stealing the President's mojo. Check out this little "snowflake baby" as she flips Bush the bird (and watch as her dad pushes her hand down). I don't know your name, honey, but you just earned a spot in the C&J Hall of Awesome. Here, have a cigar!
JEERS to 25% off your next hurl! USAir is putting ads on its barf bags. Because there's nothing more relaxing than having someone sell you somethin' while you're blowing chunks.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to a crank calling. Oh, we can dream, can't we:
Describing Texas Gov. Rick Perry as grossly unqualified for the position, God, the Creator and Ruler of the Universe, urged Perry not to run for president of the United States Wednesday. “I prayed last night and asked the Lord to support my candidacy, and He said no,” Perry told reporters outside the Texas Capitol, explaining that God had cited the governor’s rejection of federal stimulus funds to expand state jobless benefits, his irresponsible speculation about Texas seceding from the union, and his overall lack of concrete solutions to nation’s problems as reasons why He could not endorse a Perry presidential bid. “I believe God made some valid points about my lack of credentials, and He’s absolutely right. My extreme beliefs when it comes to social issues and states’ rights are not only disturbingly narrow-minded, but would also make me a horrible president.” When reached for comment, God said He would not be present at Perry’s much-talked-about Christian day of prayer on Aug. 6, calling the governor’s use of his public office to endorse a religion both “irresponsible” and a violation of the Constitution.
---The Onion
Oh, picky picky.
Have a tolerable weekend. If the heat gets to ya and you don’t know what to do, try improvising. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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