LMBO!! Seriously the STUPIDEST man on the planet.

About a week and half ago I wrote a blog entry that was called Anchorage Steamer 2. I posted Glenn Beck's interview with Meridith Vieira where she calls him out on his inflammatory speech. He said that when he rails on people saying he'd like to kill them in various ways that only an insane person could come up with, he's just kidding. It's comedy. Also he's pimping his new book: The 7 Wonders That Will Change Your Life. He about releasing the anger you have built up inside of you and all that jazz that is complete BS. We know it's BS because of this:



Now angry people are unhappy people. I know because I am angry. Thus I vent on a blog that is for the most part ignored. I recognize the places that are negative and the people who bring me unhappiness and I am trying to improve by avoiding them. There's no secret in that.

Anywho, he's defending Michelle Bachmann and Sarah Palin because they are being picked on by the men in the media. I think that's a bit sexist on Beck's part. If you can't handle the heat, stay out of the kitchen or in this case get an education. Chris Matthews is correct about Michelle Bachmann defending the Constitution as if the Founding Fathers were deity or even decent enough to not OWN people. Thomas Jefferson impregnated his slaves and George Washington freed his in his will. He wasn't going to pay to have the work done around him but he had the good grace to free them AFTER he was dead. Please. I hate history and I know this stuff.

Michelle Bachmann was an odd choice for the Tea Party to choose to rebut the State of the Union because she was elected as a Republican. Why not Rand Paul? He won on the Tea Party votes. Everyone knows that come election time the GOP will be fractured and Palin, Beck, Bachmann, and all the other crazy freak show people will have their own party while the normal conservatives are dazed and confused as to what happened. After I left the town I grew up in, a large group of people moved in or around the area. Following THEIR visionary Glenn Beck alike. Constitutionalists. John Birchers, etc. Some of the townfolk got caught up in it. Quoting Cleon Skousen in church as if he were a prophet. Eventually it faded away but it makes you wonder what people will buy into. As a Mormon I know who I'm supposed to listen to and follow. It's scary to watch people get so distracted by this insanity. Glenn Beck has become a crazed televangelist and he reflects poorly on my faith. AND he just said what I said in the Anchorage Steamer posts and what I've been saying all along. It only takes one crazy person listening to things like beating someone over the head with a shovel, or calling Obama a terrorist at a rally and allowing people to yell "kill him", or making a map with cross hairs and a list of names of people who need to be "scrubbed out." You are calling upon your followers to murder for you. Chris Matthews in his rant (and it WAS a rant) called upon Michelle Bachmann to look back at the historical facts rather than spouting ignorance.

Glenn Beck as the voice of love and forgiveness is like Bristol Palin being the voice of abstinence or Sarah Palin being the voice of finishing something you started. Hypocrisy.

And for your viewing pleasure I give you the fun Beck Crazy montage:

Please. Tell me how the Patch makes YOU feel.

(Click on form to see in it's own window then click on it again to magnify.)

My Virtual Life..

So we've established that I don't get out much and if I do, I have to REALLLLLLY love you! A friend of mine sent me a message the other day telling me that I should do this with my girls (Thank you awesome friend!!!). I love doing Messiah but honestly, I can't read music, so it's memorized. The more I watch this, though, the more I think I'd like to at least try. How amazing would it be to be a part of this.

There are no words to describe the amazing thing that Eric Whitacre has created.

Hmmm... I may just give it a try when he starts the next project. Enjoy :)

Broken...

Broken dreams

Broken Faith

Broken Home

Broken lives

Broken Melody

Broken and no one cares...

(All of these places are in Detroit.

Slide show in it's entirety can be viewed here

)

SLAMMIN!!!!!!!!!!

I'm not telling any of this in order and I've been really sick but I just got the email back that I've been waiting for.

Before we went to lunch on Saturday we went to a Magic Show that was great too (I'll find links later). Near the end this guy was introduced as a Slam Poet. (He has the link to my blog so let's hope he stays with me on this one). My daughter and I exchanged looks like "Ummm random white rapper without a beat box in the middle of the magic show.. Yeah, okay.." But I listened to his words and would have said he was reading my every thought except when HE said it, it didn't sound insane. I looked at my daughter and asked if she minded if we went to his workshop. This experience wasn't about me and I gave her advice on classes for things she is currently doing in improv and drama but there was no question in her mind that she was going to indulge me, because I was so moved. We went to lunch and talked to her drama teacher who had just been to the workshop and said it was amazing. THAT was an understatement...

Sean Critchfield:
By the time we got across the campus we were a tiny bit late but he welcomed us in anyway. Not that every moment of this workshop isn't worth relating I'm going to hit highlights for me. We began with something much like a pranayama exercise. We began bonding with the large number of people in this classroom with nothing more than Sean's urging and trust exercises. A couple of teens stood up and gave monologues. Both were amazing but he taught them how to tweak them with even better results. The last girl rang every amount of emotion out of hers by personalizing it, again with Sean's help. But we were with her. I was the first person she looked at and she saw support from me, some people were sobbing and they'd never met her in their lives. We had another mad dash afterwards but I managed to get his email address and a request for that first poem but he's proven to have a treasure trove of work.

Having left with the weight of the outside family behind, this felt like a life boat to me. I keep thinking that I need to fix this. I need to be the bigger person, but Sean spoke of our flaws and how he wasn't asking for us to leave them behind because they are a part of who we are. They are our story. I don't need acceptance. I don't need sympathy. Understanding would have been nice but I'm not going to get that either and that is what defines them as well. I can live with some angry moments but I can't beg for acceptance. Especially when I already have it in my own little world. I came home to my family a new person determined that what I do here may be worth something to someone, if only it's for me. I'll keep blogging. Sean told me to :)
Here is the poem that changed my world:

I am words. I am a gift. I am the voice of the artisans of this age. I am slam. I am beat. I am rhyme and meter, sometimes sloppy, sometimes neat. I am in San Diego trying to learn to teach Yoga and struggling to cope with the rage. I am the writing on the wall as well as on the page. I am torn into trying to figure out what to do with what I am learning and what I know. I am an ex-pastor named Joe, who wants to stand up and be seen. Who loves the machine, and the lights, and the stage. But loves the truth more than his own video age. I am an edge-walker. One who sees the buildings as just another wilderness. One who sees the trees as part of a concrete forest. As the cities dumbs down, his awareness is heightening. A modern day primitive, as rare as autumn lightning. Or maybe I’m an English American but mostly Mexican sociologist who is also a Kung-fu master. Like some kind of twisted Shao-lin burrito in a fortune cookie made of plaster, served up in a vegan restaurant smack dab in the middle of the ghetto. With a fortune in the cookie made up of a cynicism sometimes so brilliant, it blows my mind. Or maybe I’m a sniper one who still doesn’t know what he’s trying to find in making that shot.
What did you feel?
The recoil of my rifle.
What did you feel?
The light they were trying to stifle.
What do you feel?
Hope. Love. Peace. Beyond anything you can dream. Picking his shots on the battlefield, only now it’s with his soccer team. Only “dead” he had to learn was the lyrics to the dead head songs he learned on tour. As he finds that it’s up to his head if his heart is pure. Or maybe, maybe I’m fighting the good fight and feeling like I fail most of the time. As I watch the world around me that covers up the crime and I won’t take it. Maybe I’ll carry the child in my womb to the prisons I teach in and write the words on the walls of the tomb they keep free speech in. And I will fight for the strong women who haven’t found their strength yet until they do. Because it is far too long that the world goes barefoot when I can give them shoes. Or maybe I’ll see the day coming when one to many of my friends are dead or in jail and I realize it’s time to say what the hell and cut my losses. Realize that maybe I wasn’t supposed to be all that I could be in the mind numbing prison of the U.S. Army, but maybe I’m a little more blue than I deserve so I find a reason to protect and serve. And maybe I’m a brother, taking one more shot to the chin of that white boy who thinks he can spit, cause his pad and pen and race don’t fit and his words won’t ever amount to shit. What if I’m a poet laureate with just enough slam to make her tough, who fights disease, and family, and ghosts, like she just can’t get enough. And maybe she doesn’t pray to above, but her prayers got answered when she fell in love. And maybe she’s a single letter of the alphabet at the top of a letter that just runs on and on but hey, Mmmm. It sure is good. Or maybe you had to push the pause button on the tape recorder of the music of your life to learn the words to the song of your daughter and wife, learning once and for all that, that is true music. And maybe you’re a bum just looking for a meal. Or maybe you’re a dealer, trying to make that deal. Or maybe you’ll shackle me happily, grinning in your power. But you can’t cage my tongue and you can’t stop the hour. And we all got time. We’ve all been around the block. And maybe we’ll laugh it, or cry it, or bleed it. But get to it. Now. Write your story down. The rest of us need it.

In the email he said that my email came at a crucial time for him. If my little speck of near nothingness means something to this Wordmaster, how can I not keep writing what is in my head and my heart? He moves people in incredible ways. I watched it happen. Sean Critchfield changed more lives than just mine that day. I hope he can keep doing it.

He's the secret to world peace.

My weekend was AMAZING!!!!

Sooo, I've mentioned a few (hundred) times how much I love my kids. I love leaving my unpleasant headquarters of darkness and hatred, that my house has become. The anger in me at my EX-family members, is not cool. I don't see how my EX-sister does it. WOW! My oldest daughter has found an interest and talent in drama. Her drama teacher has found an AWESOME chaperone for trips.. ME!!!! We were invited to a Utah Theater Association conference.

We started Friday morning at a show with a guy that was a master of pantomime. Cary Trivanovich. I've never been a fan of the "mime thing" but this guy was so great. Very funny but he did a couple routines that were very serious and touching. My daughter is doing a pantomime for her next monologue so we chose to go to his workshop soon after. It was great!

We went to one on sound effects that wasn't very good but the guy was unprepared. Then we went to one on accents that was WAY too full and it was SUPPOSED to be Irish and Scottish accents but we got a few English ones and Scottish insults. Not cool! But the class was good, neither of us can do accents very well. I'll stop at this point because I want to talk longer on some of the things we did. So this is the end of part one.

Anchorage Steamer Part два

That's Russian for two, for you non-Russian monitoring places on our globe.

First, wow! Thank you for your interest in my REAL blog posts. Anchorage Steamer has been my hardest hit blog entry in quite some time. I will not take the credit as it's purely the genius of Jon Stewart. I'll post his clip on his reaction on and invitation to Glenn Beck to come on his show. I actually watched Glenn Beck and his wing man real time this morning with Meridith Vieira. I'll tell you what I was laughing openly at when I post the clip. You'll see what I mean. Dear lord! Shouldn't the Bobsey Twits lay low for a while until this whole "Briar's obscure blog totally predicted someone was going to actually act on your bats#it rantings and people will die" thing blows over?

I'll add on the clip to this post tomorrow. Anyone think they will actually have the courage to take Jon up on the invite? He said he'd do it on Sarah's turf... Stay tuned :)

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When Vieira asked Beck about the things he's said on his shows, mentioning specifically the time he did the whole bit on poisoning Nancy Pelosi and beating Charlie Rangle to death with a shovel, he turns to Ablow (his wingman) and said that was 8 years ago. She was kind because the beating to death by shovel is one of his favorite things he's said he'd like to do to various people. I believe he said he could kill Michael Moore with his bare hands. Off the top of my head I can't remember how he wanted to 9/11 victims to die. He just wanted them to shut up. Trying to say he was joking and telling her to ask Jon Stewart (or the Simpsons; he knows they aren't real, right?)She said she was asking him. Okay 2 things:
1. Glenn Beck isn't a comedian. He has a radio show and a tv show on Fox NEWS. You can't all of a sudden claim that everything you ever said was a stand up routine.
2. When people have a public platform and they say things that inspire feelings in people. Some people don't know how to process these things because they are fundamentally broken. If you inspire the wrong person then you can't be certain of the results.
Example: Charles Manson believed that the Beatles were speaking to him through their lyrics. He, in turn, convinced people he had adopted as his "family" to murder innocent people for him.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Anchorage Steamer

Or Palindrome. Definition?

"There must to be a word for complaining vociferously about a wrong being done to you whilst casually committing said wrong without even realizing it. For now let's call it an 'Anchorage Steamer.'"

~Jon Stewart.

My advice? Take him up on his offer Sarah. Complaining on Fox news isn't too effective. Jon even said you could bring Glenn Beck. He gave you permission to gang up on him. Do it!! Put up or shut up.

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Fascinating!

Not ME, my blog!!! Check out the traffic!!!! It's become so fascinating to the denizens of Utah, Vegas, and Alaska (dare I hope that's you Sarah?? Something happened around the 10th that coincided with a random visit from Elko, NV and >BAM< My traffic soared from my average of 2 people a day to looking like the Swiss Alps!! Now one would think traffic would slow up. Perhaps someone is spending the weekend in a cabin or something... Oh the wonders of technology!!! I-PHONE!!!!!!!!!!!!! Keep up the good work ladies :)

Genealogy, I am doing it.

I'm Mormon. It's my divine duty to do genealogy. On my dad's side, the info is harder to come by. In fact my dad's paternal line was literally dead to me. A while back I had a break through and I made my way back to the early 1700's. I was SOOOO excited that I found this but my hands were tied so I broke down and paid for a month of Ancestry.com. Actually it was after that I finished the work that I could do. It's such a massive undertaking. At first I tried to print everything up but it would fill a small room so I'll save as much as I can. It's a little horrifying how much time I spend on it, but while the family is gone it actually makes my days fly by. So now I bore anyone who will listen to tears with my ancestry. Yeah.. I'm one of THOSE people. The stories are amazing. I've even been doing some of my husband's too and I've done some searching for other people as well. It's really interesting to see where I came from. Who I inherited the bits and pieces of that makes me.. ME :) I'm trying to get my girls involved, but so far no go. They could at LEAST help me search cemeteries. There's a bazillion of them in PA!!! This is yet another reason that I am being cremated. Perhaps my family could swing by PA on the ash scattering vacation and throw me into some cemeteries.

I went to my daughter's improv show last night. Not her best night but she's good. She's so much like me. Both are. Just the conflicting sides of me, like my bipolar halves. Yet they are themselves and they amaze me with the things they do and say. What they are like. They are both SOOO opinionated, just like me! The other day my younger daughter started telling me and my oldest some of her opinions on things. I had to break it to her that she was a republican. She looked horrified and denied it. It was so funny. I said you really are sweetie, but that's okay. Just be a good person and I'll teach you how to be a republican. We're okay with that, lol. My husband came in the other night because my youngest and I were singing karaoke. Probably he got a call from the neighbors, complaining. We're trying to perfect Bohemian Rhapsody. I lost my voice but it was worth it. From the moment they were born they became my life. Their birthdays have been a celebration of that and I've always done it up in grand style because they are THAT important to this world. We still laugh and play. They still tell me their secrets and cry in my lap. They will never wish they had been born to anyone else. My life is all about them so long as I am here on this earth.