You may be surprised to hear my take on this, but I know a little about Liberace and way more than I want to about Ted Haggard. After all, I'm a classically trained pianist, as was Liberace.
 

All of the sudden I think there may be something to all this channeling nonsense! [Cue spooky Liberace piano music, lots of reverb, and ghostly holograph of Liberace piano playing itself]. Oh did I leave that stage cue in there? I can be such a klutz sometimes!

Anyway darlings, rumors of my untimely and unglamorous death were highly exaggerated by some well-meaning friends in the Hollywood and Vegas press.

But it all turned out just fine, like always my little lambs! Had them over for a huge weekend party in my new secret lair - and they stayed for the redecorating Dinner on Sunday night! More on that later. I think I need a break from Rococo, and crawl back to the comfort of my beloved Louis XIV.

Liberace

Mother was reading the paper to me yesterday, and there was this rather disturbing news about some religious man and the goings on in his boudoir. Not that his boudoir is disturbing, I'm sure it's nicely appointed.

Instead, the news was about this poor man and his wife and this nasty little trick trying to take the good Christian down into the gutter!

I won't have it. Liberace's fans won't have it! We must start a fabulous media blitz campaign and let everyone know just how good and Christian Ted Haggard is! We can hire lots of nice young men to do the heavy lifting and go door-to-door. I don't have that many bedrooms though, thank heavens. [cue angelic singing]

Am I gay? GAY, you SAY? Heck no, I'm married to Jesus! And he told me to turn the other cheek even though I want to slap you!

Too bad Ted isn't creative like I am. I think his wife gets at least a Rolls and I suggest a nice Throne as well. Works for me! And you put that nasty little trick to work driving you around and cleaning your gutters. America loves you!

Do you like the diamonds and furs, Ladies? They are nice, don't you think? OF COURSE THEY ARE - JESUS BOUGHT THEM FOR ME

My assistant tells me the Colored Big Television Lady at 3 did an interview with Ted, but she won't let me show it here! Imagine that!

Ted Haggard Admits Everything to Oprah

Well, Ted, I'm not sure about all of that. When I cry all the way to the bank, it's because I've given my life to showbiz - and she's a b-word if you take my meaning! I certainly don't make a habit of telling my secrets. Antiques and wardrobe are expensive enough as it is!

[yes I tagged Perez Hilton. You gotta problem widdat? ]

Related Post:
Unpublished Book: Memoirs of a Reluctant Cult Observer (Fiction)

This is a "me too" post inspired by FriendFeed's "25 Things You Don't Know About Me" meme.

The FriendFeed thread is over here.

<clears thing="throat" />
<vocalises thing="memememe" />

•  1. Born in California, LA area.
•  2. Ran wild in Santa Barbara. Chinese Mansion, Banana Road, Mountain Drive!
•  3. Parents went full-bore with rich-widow neo-hippy crazy-artist themes. Fun while it lasted!
  
•  4. Parents got sucked in to (and spit out by) a Cult (I Am merged into Children of the Light). Mother was a "High Priestess". They had their own branch!
•  5. Witnessed brain washing and "aggressive" therapy, and forced labor, insomnia and fasting. And a melange of beliefs such as Theosiphism, Christianity, Buddhism, and anything else lying around. Everyone had glamorous past lives, and the lucky ones were planning to "ascend" this plane by "transmuting" their "substance" (and leaving no corpse)
  
• 6. Escaped Cult with parents at 5a.m. unannounced, and traveled across the U.S. then to Europe. One of the nicest people, Anne, never escaped. The photos below are hers.
•  7. Attended Catholic school in a tiny village in Mallorca, Spain, where I learned French and a little Catalan.
•  8. Attended a Community College near Brighton. A Yankee mutt tested well enough for "posh schools", so they placed him in this alternative co-ed school for O-Level prep. 2 hours each way. Invaluable to his spotty education.
•  9. Studied piano in SF with Robert Sheldon, a student of Egon Petri. Petri taught Victor Borge.
• 10. Worked as an ESL and music teacher in Barcelona
• 11. Attended City College of San Francisco, where I started to program computers at the Electronic Music Lab
• 12. Got a job playing piano, then one programming children's games for Atari 2600 and Commodore 64. In "Forth."
• 13. Went on to work and live in the Silly Valley for a few years in the 80s.
• 14. Learned on the job from graduates of SRI, Xerox Parc and Stanford AI Lab
• 15. After long stints at companies in the North Bay, career as a C++ programmer flamed out in the crash of 2000
• 16. Co-inventor of ImagePump, which was sold to several people, even without a patent. Still in use today. People said nice things!
  
• 17. In 2004 I started working with Robert Elvin to provide music for his indie film "The Savant" released in 2008. People said nice things! 
  
• 18. Started full-time programming again in 2007, this time Eclipse, Java, GWT, GXT, MySql, tomcat
• 19. 2 sisters live in Ireland, one sister lives in Las Vegas
• 20. I'm highly Skeptical, even of these "facts."
• 21. I have a large extended family on my Mother's side, as she had 6 sisters and a brother 
• 22. I wrote a "pocket primer" for the "Performing Pianist"
• 23. I prepared my own edition of Isaac Albeniz' Navarra for piano
• 24. I have been known to mess around with multi-track digital audio. Magix Samplitude is my weapon of choice.
• 25. I am a frustrated radio producer, not much of a blogger, and not a journalist either - I like to help journalists, though. 

Science Friday Archives: The Happening

This is one of only two NPR programs I listen to regularly, and while I occasionally find it a little "soft on science" it is generally well produced and presented.

That's why the recent segment allowing Mr. Shyamalan to flog his new movie "The Happening" was surprisingly bad. Evidently Mr. Shyamalan believes we must stop expecting Science to save the day, embrace our ignorance, and find God in all his many and multifarious disasters.

From bees to storms, Mr. Shyamalan blithely rattled off some failings of modern Science (as he sees them) and then reminded Mr. Flatow that Einstein started out life as a non-believer, but was a wholly religious man toward the end of his life.

Unfortunately, Mr. Flatow only corrected his most baldly false assertion, but was unable or unwilling to engage him on his larger agenda. The anti-science pro-Jeebus lobbies are indeed poisoning the well, infiltrating public schools, and, of course, getting prime airtime to flog unreleased films on NPR's Science Friday. 

I pray for America's brain.

This project has been simmering on the back burner for a long time.
This blog may however not be the appropriate venue.
This is not a promise, threat, or binding agreement of any kind.
Any similarity to actual persons or places is purely coincidental.

Chapter Outline:

1. They killed my father and danced on his grave (a slight exaggeration)
2. Free school & Unitarians
3. Theosophism, Ojai, New Age-y Latecomers
4. Mountain Drive, Banana Road, Communes, Hippies, Millionaires and Us
5. Pretending to be Into Drugs (at 8 years old)
6. Everyone In The Pool (nudity required)
7. Los Angeles "dumb-lady" cult style vs. Huntsville "brainwasher's" cult style
8. Seizing Control of Minds, Wills and Assets
9. The Inner Circle, Monetization, Branches, Franchising & Event Marketing
10. The Dark Art of Human Brainwashing (a.k.a. behavior modification, basic training)
11. The Very Best of Intentions
12. The Carrot & The Stick
13. The Escape
14. The Jim Jones Legacy
15. Signs you may be In a Cult
16. A Cult by Any Other Name
17. Scientology & Anonymous
    
18. 131 flavors of Jeebus
19. Signs a relative or friend is in Jeopardy
20. Things that may help with Cult Inoculation
21. Modern Trends in Anti-science, Bad Education and "Beliefism"

Troublemakers have published an Irish Catholic website containing a blasphemous video and a link to the Irish Atheists page.

Straight from The Horses Mouth:

My Argument With God: How I went from Jesus-loving Christian to fun-loving infidel... in one afternoon

This is not, as one might be led to think, a confessional wherein he admits to being a fan of Karl Pilkington.

...one can laugh with and not just at Karl Pilkingtons everywhere...

The Power of Nightmares Part 1: Baby it's Cold Outside - by Adam Curtis (Google Video)

P of Ns (Internet Archive)

Synopsis: Alarming information feeds from the remote Galaxy ZEWEUWQQI, sometimes called Sleeping Satanic Spirals, indicate activities which call for immediate deployment of counter-insurgency demolition forces under Galactic Planetary Decree #225.344.239.294

It seems inevitable to this reporter that once these Earthling Religious Fanatics discover the provable absence of a Divine Dictator, they will take violent action.  Since their most stable civilizations [term used loosely here] are based on mutually exclusive monodic godheads, it is only a matter of time before the big three join forces and perpetrate terrorism on their little corner of the universe, in the name of all three One and Only Gods who’s existence they have just disproved.

They will undoubtedly realize that their cluster’s star, a yellow youngster of type YY131.009 is the most powerful potential weapon within their grasp.  This reporter need not remind Galactic News readers that the technology required to initiate a stellar collapse and novation sequence is all over the galactic infoplane, and more to the point, is self-evident soon after a pre-telligent species starts connecting sub-atomic dots with silly-string theories.

All of the indicators for a stellar suicide bomb are in place and it is our duty to protect our Galactic Hinterlands from further de-volutionary decline and to ensure its continued service as the vacation getaway of galactic choice.  It would be upsetting to have a new Atomic Streamliner damaged on its first voyage as bits of EarthStar zing past the StreamProtect anti-matter agent.