balls of fucking steel, man (if you ask me)

Stephen Colbert's White House Correspondents Dinner Speech, in its entireity.

Based on the blog articles and the few published ones out there, there's definitely a lot of controversy out there. Many are hailing him as a brilliant, scathing satarist, someone who finally had the guts to say what needed to be said in an atmosphere where such truths often go unspoken. Many others as dismissing him as an unfunny b-list comedian who lamely skewered just the right wing, proving himself to be another petty liberal "comedian" who ultimately doesn't matter much.

Many say he was unbelievably brave to do this. Others say it's not bravery if he's not in any real danger of his life or job or welfare; for everyone who hailed Stephen for "speaking truth to power," there're those who point out that it's nothing in comparison to, say, someone speaking truth to Saddam at the height of his power, where there'd be actual and very real physical danger. They say Stephen's not going to lose his job over this, and besides, Bush's ratings are at an all-time low, so the really brave thing would have been if he had said these things at the height of his popularity.

If you want my opinion, from a pure comedic performer standpoint, you have to consider that Stephen was up there for about twenty minutes, performing vicious satire right in front of his targets' *themselves*, receiving little more than titters and many, many uncomfortable silences, and not *once* (well, except for that one flub) breaking character or letting up. I'm sorry, I don't care how little "danger" he's really in personally or professionally, doing that took, as Stephen himself might put it, "muchos huevos grandes."

(Note: I find it bitterly interesting how the major news outlets, cnn.com, msnbc.com, etc, have all downplayed Stephen's performance, reducing it to little more than a footnote next to the much safer, soft-ball Presidential look-alike sketch. By pretending not to acknoweldge all the things Colbert said, particularly about the press themselves, is he not, in effect, kinda proving himself right about them?)

In any case, I retract what I said earlier about Colbert bombing. I mean, if his goal was just to make people laugh, then yeah, he bombed totally. But what he did and what he was going for, those jokes were not exactly "for" the people at that dinner. And for what I believed he sought out to do, I think Stephen's performance came off brilliantly. And while others disagree (and make good arguments, in all honesty), I honestly think it took huge fucking balls to do that.

Any thoughts?

May Day.

Yes, May Day. A day of major signigficance both to my pagan friends and to my follow Washington College students. But with extra meaning for me.

Two years ago, I met Misty. And one year ago, for related reasons, it was emotionally the worst day of my life. It was probably the least fun I have ever had being naked.

The great WAC tradition has forever been marked by those two days for me. Whereas for many others, it's a day to get naked and have lots of sex, give or take a couple beers and pagan gods. Between all that, this is a day that makes me mightily uncomfortable. I just kind of wish we could bypass the whole event.

Which got me thinking, maybe I could be the May Day Ebeneezer Scrooge.

Just think about it. I could go around, grumbling about how everyone should put clothes on, stop dancing around that may pole, what's the point, you're just going in circles!

But then, of course, the ghosts would come, wouldn't they?

Ghost: I am the Ghost of May Day Present!
Me: AIIIEEE!
Ghost: Be not afraid, I'm not a bad ghost!
Me: No, I mean, put some clothes on for God's sake! You're a huge fat bearded naked guy covered in drippings from the turkey legs you're eating!
Ghost: Hey, be cool, man. Have some Natty Boh.

I have had no food as of yet today, so don't expect me to have been going somewhere with this.

courtesy of bloo_mountain

C for Cookie.

I am ded, ded, a thousand times DED from the laughter.