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You are here: Home / Another Sign That The Apocalypse Is Upon Us…

Another Sign That The Apocalypse Is Upon Us…

by | 90 Comments

This post is in: ,

….this, presented without further comment, via TPM:

Former New Life Church pastor and self-described “bisexual” Ted Haggard swapped wives with actor and self-described “church” Gary Busey for the ABC reality show Celebrity Wife Swap.

Uh.

What?

Speechless, me.

…

Really.  The Mayans might just have bee on to something. 2012 could be it for our species, or at least for any culture that could spawn Celebrity Wife Swap. (Which is, I suppose, perhaps the perfect habitat for the guests mentioned above.)

I say we throw in the trowel and await our Vogon overlords.

Image:  Lovis Corinth, In Max Halbes’ Garden, 1899

 

Reader Interactions

90Comments

  2. 2.

    Tom Levenson

    @Maude: The real question is whether or not viewers get paid to watch it. Can’t think of any other reason to tune in, and while we know what I am, we are still haggling over price…

  8. 8.

    Someguy

    I think you meant to say Haggard is Buysexual, in that he apparently liked to buy sex with young men.

  9. 9.

    slag

    I protest! I know we’ve been bad lately, Tom, but I don’t think we’ve been bad enough to deserve knowing about this.

  10. 10.

    RobertB

    Sad to say, I’ve actually sat through a couple of episodes of “Wife Swap”, at least enough of each episode to see the setup. I know everybody’s somebody’s weirdo, and 300M is a lot of folks, but there are some freaky people out there.

    The interesting part of the whole “Wife Swap” reality show thing is that it’s more of a “Mom Swap”. It’s not like connubial duties are being fulfilled here. I guess calling it “Wife Swap” catches a few more pairs of eyeballs, though.

  12. 12.

    Mnemosyne

    I was flipping through the radio channels yesterday on the drive home from work and NPR’s “Marketplace” was doing an interview that supposedly was going to give their listeners some insight into the new consumer protection agency. The interview was with — and I am not joking here — the editor of American Banker magazine.

    And they wonder why I don’t send them money anymore …

  14. 14.

    jibeaux

    @RobertB: I think there’s a Bill Maher joke about that — c’mon, it’s just women folding the laundry of different kids.

  16. 16.

    Violet

    Gary Busey is showing up on commercials for a car dealership in my neck of the woods. I was fast-forwarding through commercials on the DVR and did a double take, so went back to see if I’d seen right. Sure enough, there he is looking kind of crazy (normal for him) and telling people to buy cars. He must be hard up. I didn’t watch closely enough to see if he’s touring around to do promo appearances at the dealership or is just appearing on their commercials. Utterly bizarre.

    Edit: Okay, I found this on buzzfeed about it. http://www.buzzfeed.com/dray/gary-busey-appears-in-car-dealership-commercial-4666. See for yourself how utterly weird they are.

  18. 18.

    geg6

    @Violet:

    Ha! He’s doing them here, too! I couldn’t believe my eyes. I still cannot figure out, for the life of me, why anyone would want Gary Busey as their spokesmodel.

  20. 20.

    Violet

    @geg6:
    They’re truly bizarre, aren’t they? I can’t remember anything abut the dealership — like what dealership, what type of car, when or where it is. I just remember Gary Busey looking crazy trying to sell cars. So weird.

    Re: Ted Haggard. I think he’ll do pretty much anything for money these days. Wasn’t he really broke after the church kicked him out?

  22. 22.

    MattF

    There is a certain symmetry to the date 12/21/12, btw. Mirror-inversion, or something. So, I suppose we’ll all go float through the looking glass and then have an argument with the Red Queen. And she’ll win the argument, as usual.

  24. 24.

    max

    (Which is, I suppose, perhaps the perfect habitat for the guests mentioned above.)

    But in that episode, Gary Busey, like some kind of spastic fortune cookie, apparently unloaded this piece of wisdom: “Earth is the best vacation place for advanced clowns”

    Yes, the man is unsane, but he truly has grasped the wheel of life.

    max
    [‘So maybe there’s a slim hope.’]

  25. 25.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    self-described “church” Gary Busey

    is “church” a noun or and adjective in that self-description?

  26. 26.

    Villago Delenda Est

    OK, what’s next? Goldman Sachs proudly presents Jerry Sandusky’s Cub Scout Pack goes to Paris?

  27. 27.

    joes527

    @Speedy: isn’t he whole “end of the world” thing based on the fact that the Mayans just didn’t bother to work out their calendar past this year? I mean seriously, they just figured that by this time in history they could just pick up the next year’s calendar at the local Hallmark.

    We can’t depend on the Mayans to get us out of this one.

  28. 28.

    geg6

    @Violet:

    Even more creepy is the ad I’m getting here for a DVD called Fire From the Heartland: The Awakening of the Conservative Woman starring Coulter, Malkin, Schlafly, Bachmann, Loesch, and SE Cupp.

    Jeebus, that’ll give the the kiddies nightmares.

  29. 29.

    jl

    @joes527:

    Those kind of awkward uh oh moments can happen when your civilization gig ends before your calendar is finalized.

    Now the Incas, they had a rockin’ calendar, which, their descendents claim, goes for another ten thousand years and has no stinking apocalypses. The Incas have a veritable energizer guniea pig calendar that goes on and on and on.

  31. 31.

    Mike Goetz

    “Former New Life Church pastor and self-described “bisexual” Ted Haggard swapped wives with actor and self-described “church” Gary Busey for the ABC reality show Celebrity Wife Swap.”

    This is the country that Barack Obama is trying to govern, y’all.

  34. 34.

    The Other Chuck

    The Mayan calendar ends because they realized it was a piece of crap and adopted one that wasn’t. This thing needed something like leap _months_ to catch up occasionally, a constant cycle of Gregorian reformations.

  35. 35.

    Mike Goetz

    By the way, I thought this was marvellous from a NYT article on young Asperber’s people in love:

    “She was the only girl to have ever asked questions about his obsessive interests — chemistry, libertarian politics, the small drone aircraft he was building in his kitchen — as though she actually cared to hear his answer.”

    Hah.

  38. 38.

    gelfling545

    I can certainly see how, if you were the wife of either, you’d be willing to trade for just about anything else.

  39. 39.

    boss bitch

    Oops! John McCain, campaigning with Romney + Haley in SC, mistakenly (yeah right) said that President Obama will turn the economy around. Gets booed by crowd.

    HA!!! LOL!!

  40. 40.

    The Other Bob

    OT

    How did Mitt’s Dad run for President when according to Wikipedia:

    “Romney was born to American parents in the Mormon colonies in Mexico”

    Should we also be questioning Mitt’s status as a natural born citizen? Oh yeah, his Dad wasn’t Kenyan.

  41. 41.

    JPL

    If Haggard and Busey had cleaned toilets as children they would not have to be swapping wives today. Just sayin
    Clean toilets for America

  42. 42.

    David Koch

    speaking of tee vee, MSNBC is giving Melissa Harris-Perry her own show.

    Bravo.

    MSNBC now has 4 persons of color hosting shows, which is 4 more than the entire combined line ups at CNN, Fixxed News, NBC, CBS, ABC, and Balloon-Juice.

  43. 43.

    scav

    This may provide a feasible OT antidote (to what passes for reality recently) to someone that needs this kind of thing and I think I really want/need to be one of those people. Forget French Toast, look that the Spaniards do to it. (Video)

  44. 44.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @David Koch:

    speaking of tee vee, MSNBC is giving Melissa Harris-Perry her own show.

    Cool. I hope it’s not scheduled by the same genius who put Chris Hayes’ show between the Sunday farm report and a rerun of the first Sham Wow commercial

  48. 48.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Valdivia:

    very instructive of which way the wind is blowing

    Isn’t that one of Politico’s rotating tag lines?

  49. 49.

    gwangung

    @David Koch:

    MSNBC now has 4 persons of color hosting shows, which is 4 more than the entire combined line ups at CNN, Fixxed News, NBC, CBS, ABC, and Balloon-Juice.

    Hm. I think a couple FP might argue with that last site mentioned.

  51. 51.

    WereBear

    @geg6: Fire From the Heartland: The Awakening of the Conservative Woman starring Coulter, Malkin, Schlafly, Bachmann, Loesch, and SE Cupp.

    Lawdee. When you consider the lot of the Conservative Woman, that takes brass gonads.

    Because the one I felt for in the Haggard scandal was his wife: good Evangelical lady, I’m sure. Like so many I knew in high school, wound up marrying the gay guy, the Asberger’s guy, the guy both parents were pushing, much too young, because all she was destined to be was a wife and mother… why wait?

    Is this the same one who is being swapped with Gary Busey’s live-in? Sad. Just so sad.

    And by the way, Haggard was a closeted evangelical minister, and Gary Busey had a traumatic brain injury… but I repeat myself.

  52. 52.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Watchting Tweety, with the mute button on. Someone on the Romney campaign thinks John Sununu is an effectve surrogate. I suppose he is less obnoxious than Chris Christie, and more current than Gerald Ford

  53. 53.

    tBone

    Wife swap? Surely the more interesting scenario would involve Haggard trying out his nongay backrub/throwing away meth schtick on Busey, wouldn’t it?

  54. 54.

    MikeJ

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    Someone on the Romney campaign thinks John Sununu is an effectve surrogate.

    Perhaps if you sent him out of New Hampshire to campaign it could work. Hell, you might pick up some votes in New Hampshire if that were the case.

  55. 55.

    Gin & Tonic

    @David Koch:

    MSNBC now has 4 persons of color hosting shows, which is 4 more than the entire combined line ups at CNN, Fixxed News, NBC, CBS, ABC, and Balloon-Juice.

    I’m a pink guy myself, so don’t spend a lot of time thinking about this, but I could have sworn somebody said the other day, after ABL signed off, that Dennis G and Zandar were non-pink as well.

  56. 56.

    Litlebritdifrnt

    @joes527:

    That is what my boss said “perhaps the Mayans were just tired of making calendars and figured out someone else could do it”

  58. 58.

    Comrade Misfit

    I watched the episode. i watched it because it sounded as though it was going to be a fascinating trainwreck.

    But it really was kind of sweet. His partner, Stephanie, had some suggestions for the Haggard about slowing down the pace of their lives and spending some time with each other.

  60. 60.

    Mnemosyne

    @Gin & Tonic:

    I know that Zandar is non-pink, but I think the other non-pink front pager is mistermix, not Dennis.

    But for all we know they’re all sock puppets for Tunch, and you don’t get much whiter than that.

  61. 61.

    Litlebritdifrnt

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    Chris is now going to be on at 8am both days, Melissa will follow his show at 10am on Saturday. The person who should be pissed is Alex Witt, her Saturday show has been moved from 10am to 7am – 8am. (It keeps its regular slot on Sunday I believe)

  62. 62.

    burnspbesq

    @Mnemosyne:

    I was flipping through the radio channels yesterday on the drive home from work and NPR’s “Marketplace” was doing an interview that supposedly was going to give their listeners some insight into the new consumer protection agency. The interview was with—and I am not joking here—the editor of American Banker magazine.

    I heard the same interview with the legal editor of American Banker. Unfortunately, the arguments he was suggesting are not frivolous. That was a preview of the litigation to come.

  63. 63.

    David Koch

    @Gin & Tonic: good. I’m glad I was wrong. Sadly, some people can’t admit mistakes. For them, if WVU killed children and raped nuns, they would making excuses.

  64. 64.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Litlebritdifrnt: a wee bit early for those of us west of the Mississippi (on the plus side, I am almost never exposed to Joe and Mika’s Center-Right Circle Jerk). I don’t understand why they don’t rerun them the way they do the week-night shows

  66. 66.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Mnemosyne: True, that. Although that wasn’t a very well-lighted picture below, because he looked distinctly beige, or ecru, or something non-white.

  70. 70.

    MikeJ

    @Gin & Tonic:

    that Dennis G and Zandar were non-pink as well.

    Also too, while many (most?) latin people view themselves as black, white, or native (depending on their personal ancestry), many (most?) people in the US seem to insist that “hispanic” is a non-white ethnicity, one that another front pager falls into.

  73. 73.

    eemom

    Sadly, some people can’t admit mistakes. For them, if WVU killed children and raped nuns, they would making excuses.

    hey, stop picking on Greenwald or I’ll tell Cole!

  74. 74.

    Litlebritdifrnt

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    I tend to wake up at 6am 7 days a week anyway, I may snooze for an hour or so extra at the weekends but it is rare for me to be in bed past 7am on any day. I have to admit that Up! has become a weekend treat for me, I tend to the animals, let Cueball out, get the DH some soda, then make myself a bucket of hot tea and snuggle into the recliner to watch the show while still in my jammies and robe. I am thrilled that MHP is getting her own show, other than the fact that I will not get a damn thing done on a Saturday morning from now on :)

  75. 75.

    Satanicpanic

    @geg6: I’m too lazy to google but I’m guessing at least half of those ladies aren’t from anywhere normally considered “the heartland”

  81. 81.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Raven:

    I’ve never understood why Malkin would align herself with people who would, if they were in power, relegate her to the role of comfort woman for the junior enlisted.

  83. 83.

    Jennifer

    RE: Ted Haggard – there was a documentary on him a few years back, I think by Alexandria Pelosi, following him and his family as they tried to get things back together after the scandal. I came away with from it not disliking Ted Haggard the person, and actually feeling sorry for him in this regard: he admitted that he has this attraction to men, but he’s chosen to continue interpreting his religion in such a way that condemns him for having it. That’s tough. On the one hand, you have to respect him for holding onto his beliefs, though I don’t agree with them, even when they condemn his own actions. On the other, what a waste to self-flagellate over something that you’ve chosen to believe that you could just as easily choose not to believe. I mean, the whole “homosexuality is sin” is just some people’s interpretation; there’s nothing in the Bible aside from a couple of old testament passages (at least one of them suspect, as it came from Paul) indicating otherwise. It didn’t make the Top Ten, certainly, and there’s direct contradiction to the idea in the passages where it’s made clear that God hates all sin equally, Jesus said love thy neighbor (not love thy neighbor unless he’s a fag)…all of the stuff the evangelicals have piled on in making teh ghey out to be the worst sin imaginable is just made up, it ain’t even in the book.

  84. 84.

    The Sailor

    Gary Busey has brain damage from a motorcycle accident. What’s Haggards excuse?
    And the wives!? WTF!?

  85. 85.

    Bill Murray

    @Gin & Tonic: well that would be two, which is still less than 5. The question then becomes, do CNN, Fixxed News, NBC, CBS, ABC combine for 3 or more non-Tuscadero Americans?

  86. 86.

    Schlemizel

    I doubt the Mayan thing is gonna work out but every day in every way I am convinced the only positive end to the current streak is a giant fricking meteor. It can’t come soon enough.

  87. 87.

    01010101

    Gary as the pig in Fear and Loathing was alright. Why HST might have passed him the mirror of snow for that

    Duck when you see the jaguar deities from the sun…..

  88. 88.

    DanielX

    Former New Life Church pastor and self-described “bisexual” Ted Haggard swapped wives with actor and self-described “church” Gary Busey for the ABC reality show Celebrity Wife Swap.

    Clearly, we are doomed.

  89. 89.

    JR in WVa

    ME too! What a out the wives? How did they get talked into participating in an asocial farce like this?

    How much money do they get for putting up a good face in this kind of pole-dancer TV?

    It’s dangerous just to click up or down to see what’s on now a days. No telling what you’ll see. While my wife was in the hospital (September-November) I was exposed to afgternoon TV in some waiting rooms.

    Everyone is stressed because their loved one is in surgery, and Jerry F’ing Springer is on TV with couples and their paternity test results! Which are 100% all screwed up from any sane perspective! Or something even more strange.

    By the way, regarding Burma, I worked with a brillant escapee, and he feels that and a real the people there aren’t educated enough to participate in democratic government. They can’t tell the difference between a sharp thief and a real democrat. Watching the Iowa caucases I see what he means.

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