Friday, August 31, 2012

Talking to Chairs.

Fabulous Friday, Fellow Fertility-Challenged!

I have slight suspicions that what I'm about to say may offend people, but since on the weekend the blogosphere seems like a carnival that everyone's abandoned and I am more than likely talking to myself, I'll say it anyways.

Did anyone watch the Republican National Convention last night?  The Clint Eastwood part, specifically?

What was that?

Okay so I've already admitted that I'm an evil bleeding-heart liberal (if you're a conservative bloggy friend I dig you, and respect you, and I will make you dig me - come put your head to my breasts) so it's at times a smidge uncomfortable for me to watch.  I also must admit that long before last night, I've seen what I perceived to be old white men having arguments with a completely hallucinated version of President Obama - it aint new.

But I saw Clint and got excited about him talking.

I like it, on either side, when people get up and address all Americans, merrily refrain from accusing me of being un-American because I'm not exactly like them, and just state what the damn platform is. Admittedly watching some of the other speeches I locked my doors in fear that a large group of white men from parts of the country I've only visited by-way-of-layover would come storming up my driveway with torches and drag me into the streets for a hangin'.

So when good ole Clint got up on stage (who I find to be a lovely & talented director) I thought 'well looky that - a reasonable old school republican who will explain it to me in a way that I can understand without immediately describing me as a 'them' that must be stopped'.

You understand I don't want to take your gun away from you - don't you Clint?  And I understand that you're probably not going to hold me under baptismal water in a church somewhere until I accept your religion or my inevitable drowning.  We have an understanding, you and me.

For the first two minutes.  Then you had a hallucinatory conversation with a chair.

For those of you who missed it - he pretended an empty chair was President Obama, and that the invisible President was telling him and Mr. Romney to go fuck themselves. To watch, click here.

I've also already admitted that I dig weird.  I DIG WEIRD.  I do think that he was, even with this, the least offensive speaker in regards to people who disagree with him, and that labeling this whole chair thing  a super big deal is blowing it a bit out of proportion (and it's actually kind of funny).  I SO wanted to get it because it was as though someone had hurled my Grandpa up on stage two minutes after he learned he was going to give a speech - which was sad and uncomfortable.

But it was that all-too-rare form of weird that leaves, even Stork, Queen of Weird, just going... "What... was that?"




I am an improviser.

If you were to invite me to speak at your wedding, I would write down a couple of bullet points that I want to make sure to get to, but I'd still go into it thinking "nah, I'll just wing it".

I am way better at improvising words then I am at planning.  Same thing goes for my style of writing.

Don't get me wrong - occasionally I think things out.  A lot.  And some of my favorite writers/comedians are the ones that really think things through.  They're beautifully written, sometimes serious, and they do an excellent well-thought out job of making you feel like you're IN the place/time/situation they're talking about.

With my personality, often when times/situations call for that sort of thing out of me, it's forced and a little dishonest and after many years o' writing I've noticed that the things people seem to respond to the most are the stuff I just kind of crap out.

Writing, to me, is like taking a poo in a public bathroom.  If you worry about the kind of splash you're going to make or whether people are going to be offended by what kind of stink you leave, you're not going to get any real relief.  (And in the end, it all just tends to be crap, anyways, so might as well save yourself some constipation).

I'm a little choosier when it comes to speaking-speaking, but in my opinion the best, funniest things come out when people are a little out of their head.

For example - Billy Eichner.  Yes, yes, I have a sick and annoying love for him and nothing that man has ever said didn't make me laugh, but he's the most recent example of something someone said that didn't really make sense and therefor made me pee.

He was talking about how he detests Rachael Ray, and just made a face and said "that woman is like a demon... trapped inside a goat!"

I die.  Makes no sense whatsoever, and yet somehow it makes perfect sense and I die.  I laugh now just thinking about it.

My roundabout point:  I'm a devout improviser and I totally think improvisation works for funny.  But mayhaps when it comes to things like political speeches people should find a happy medium between robotically reading off a teleprompter with no feeling and just fucking winging it.

I think with some degree of thought-out, on both sides, they would further give themselves a chance of not demonizing the other group or the undecided, and with a little wiggle room for some improv there'd be space for some passion to rile up the already devout.

I'm just sayin'.... Maybe that way we could avoid borderline disrespectful conversations with chairs and exploiting the bewildered while still allowing both sides to see that you're passionate.

Sidenote:  Do you think when Mr. Romney said "Mr. Chairman", he was in fact talking to the invisible man in a chair?  Just a thought.

As my friend said on his Facebook page, "Not since Morty Guffman has an empty chair had so many eyes on it".



Send me Secrets!  We may be on a Secrets hiatus for a week should I not get a couple more - and as previously promised, I shall punish you by filling up your newsfeed with sad Sarah McLachlan's animals.

23 comments:

  1. 1. Waiting for Guffman is one of my favourite movies. Ever.

    2. I didn't watch the entire speech, just bits and pieces of it on the CNN website. My reaction was a big sad-face, with more than a hint of confusion. I like Clint Eastwood, even though he and I don't lean the same way politically. That speech made me embarrassed for him and had me worrying that he's on the long and lonely road to dementia. Coming from a comedian, it might have been funny. Coming from Clint Eastwood, it was undignified and sad.

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    1. 1. I loooooove Waiting for Guffman! If you had said this in person you would now sadly be in the position of watching me act the entire movie out.

      2. I am STILL confused.. because he seemed so confused... It's been almost 24 hours and I still can't get a grip on what the hell I watched. I don't know if he was trying to be funny and the delivery was all wrong, or if he was trying to be funny and it was wrong because he was a smidgen confused... It made me.. uncomfortable. Which is weird because had you said the day before "want to see Clint Eastwood talking to a chair?" I would have said "YES PLEASE."

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    2. 1. I'm fine with you acting it out, as long as I get to participate in the musical numbers. Also, I want to do the Bastard People speech.

      2. I just found this and had to come back to share: http://www.happyplace.com/17700/invisible-obama-available-on-amazon

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    3. 1. HAHAHA! I can do all the entire "teacher's pet" number and at least once a month want to give someone the bastard people speech. "I'm going to go home and bite my pillow is what I'm going to do!"

      2. I DIE. Although I would like to get tackled by an invisible secret serviceman.. That seems... hot.

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  2. Clint Eastwood is the bomb but he is getting old. I wouldn't be surprised if he really did think the President was sitting there. He's still freaking awesome though!

    I sent a seeeecret in!

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    1. He IS awesome! I was so sad - I was waiting for the Clint Eastwood induced transcendent/united moment and instead it just got... weird.

      Yay secrets!

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  3. Have you seen @eastwooding on twitter? Bless it.

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    1. Hahahaha!!! I read an article on it and there's a picture of a corgi staring at a stool that makes me die.

      http://mashable.com/2012/08/31/eastwooding-planking-internet-meme/#8542110-Eastwooding

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  4. I really want to comment here...had one all written out too...but I'm so anti political that I don't really care about this election...I'm sure that makes me a bad American, but I live in Illinois, my vote doesn't really matter anyway.

    I love people who are passionate about their beliefs....I fully admit I don't always agree with them, but I'm respectful of the beliefs. My husband is a republican...I AM NOT...but he's very passionate about it...I respect it even if I don't always agree....

    I'm with you on this,
    "I like it, on either side, when people get up and address all Americans, merrily refrain from accusing me of being un-American because I'm not exactly like them, and just state what the damn platform is."

    Everything else is just a bunch of fluff....

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    1. Bad American... Baaaaaad American!

      I, too, do my very very storkiest best to be respectful of all sides.. I just get lost when it goes to the exxxxxtreeeeeeme.

      I would looooove it if there were some candidate, somewhere, for any office, that just was totally honest about what they actually thought - crazy or not - without the fluff.

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  5. I love you. That's all I have to say. Sending my secret now.

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  6. You made me laugh out loud! I stopped trying to understand republicans a long time ago. It's like march of the penguins... Straight to dumbdome!

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    1. And ya know, Bub was like "WHY are you still watching this?" But really I wanted someone to talk to ME - say something reasonable that would make me be a little less scared for myself if that party wins, you know something along the lines of "here are some things that you're doing right, and here are some things that I really want to do differently". I thought it'd be Clint!

      But no. All I learned was that invisible Obama has a potty mouth.

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  7. I clicked on the TV for some background noise while reading and commenting on blogs and it just happened to be tuned to the channel broadcasting the RNC. I had it on long enough to notice Clint Eastwood taking the stage and I caught a few snippets of what he was saying, but like I said, I just had it on for white noise. So now after reading your post, I wish I would have paid more attention! Sounds like it was a bit entertaining, you know, as entertaining as a political convention can be when you're someone who's not particularly into politics. Fortunately, the internet exists so I can watch it again.

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    1. Watch it! Link's in the post... And then you can also wonder what. the hell. happened. there.

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  8. Oy, the chair thing. While my very conservative husband made me watch the majority of the republican convention, I missed old clint. But even my husband admitted it was wierd, and that says a lot.

    I have a couple of secrets for you. I have been meaning to send them for weeks actually but have not been able to get time to write them out(my blog also suffers due to time problem). I am going to send them though, I will try today!

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    1. It was weird! And I was so hoping it would be.. Helpful. Calming. But no, I watched, and desperately wanting to get it... Did not.

      Send me a secret!

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  9. Weird. Very weird. Mind you, politics is all rather dotty isn't it.

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    1. I mean, at least it was a fistful of AWESOME distraction in the middle of a bunch of other things that all kind of ran together. ;)

      I want more people off of their rockers and talking to imaginary people IN rockers.. More!

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  10. I love your writing and improvising! I wish I could write like you! :-)
    And yeah, omg that was sooo weird. I don't even know what to say about it!

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    1. Not much to say about it, except to perhaps be a smidge frightened that our houses are full of invisible people sitting on our furniture and cursing.

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