Photos
Chris Jones, the journalist behind the infamous Esquire profile of Roger Ebert (who is the best) points out an on-line feud that Roger Ebert has been having with your boyfriend, teabagging blogger Caleb Howe, and oh man, this guy is seriously your boyfriend. Like, every night before going to bed in the bed that you share with him, you raise your hand and wiggle your fingers, because there is no ring on those fingers, and you want Caleb Howe to stop being your boyfriend and start being your husband. That is how much you LOVE HIM. From Chris Jones’s Esquire blog:
On his own blog and Twitter account, Roger has become an outspoken critic not only of movies, but also of Sarah Palin and the Tea Partiers, and he has taken his fair share of shots at them for their jingoism and general imperviousness to reason. This time, he called the flag-shirt debacle what it was — an unnecessary, calculated attempt to provoke — and he compared it to wearing a hammer and sickle to a Nascar race on the Fourth of July. Apparently that was enough to inspire Howe to pull a fifth of vodka out of his freezer, take to his own Twitter account, and become the most hateful person on the Internet.
I’m not a professional journalist, so I can’t verify whether or not any ice-cold vodka was involved–and I am not sure Mr. Howe deserves the defense of intoxication–but the following string of Twitter posts certainly confirms that Caleb Howe, your boyfriend, who you are dating very seriously and would like to spend the rest of your life with if he would only have you, is a living nightmare:
“Mom, I think I found the one!” — You
So gross! Literally the work of human garbage! I know that God didn’t make no junk, but he kind of made some junk, you know? As Chris Jones points out (because this blog post is literally just his blog post rewritten, but you cannot sue a man for plagiarism when that man is not actually a man but simply an IDEA) (what?) Ebert’s response was short and to the point:
Enough said! But I will also say this: come on, tea party movement. I have worked really hard to remain open to the fact that we live in a big and complicated world where millions of people (billions of people?) have vastly different ideas about how things should work, and everyone is entitled to those opinions. And this particular outburst is easy to explain away as the disgusting work of one misguided man. Except that it isn’t. And it is pretty clear at this point that your loose-knit political organization is a bastion for actual hatred. Cool! Cool loose-knit political organization!
It’s one thing to be angry about HUMAN BEINGS HAVING ACCESS TO AFFORDABLE HEALTH CARE. I can definitely understand why you would be so upset about that. BOOO! They should get sick and die by their own bootstraps, right? Besides, insurance companies are neat! And they need regular Americans like you and me to DEFEND THEM FROM THE MEAN GOVERNMENT. Definitely. You guys have got it so figured out it’s crazy. Just kidding! Looks like my communist doctor gave me a prescription for Sarcasm Pills. (To be taken with ugh.)
But this? And this? And this? And this? And this? Shame on you. Shame on you so much.
 |
 |
You Might Also Like
 Bam Margera: Still The Worst! |  In Defense Of Gwyneth Paltrow |  Chet Haze FINALLY Breaks His Legendary Silence On The… |  Woman Terrorized By Spike Lee’s Tweets Is Selfish Monster |
Leave a Reply
Sign inSign in with FacebookYou must be logged in to post, reply to, or rate a comment.
No Gabe, He’s upset because the illegal Mexicans are taking all of our cushy strawberry picking and meat packing jobs.
One was cleaning my house the other day and I was like “Who does she think she is!? I could totally be doing that job!”
I know! We get it! You’re doing very well for yourself, STOP RUBBING IT IN!
I hate it when I buy Strawberries from a mother of four on the side of the road. I like to serve it with blueberries and whipped cream on angel food cake…BECAUSE I’M AMERICAN!!!!!!!!!1
“They didn’t sneak into this country to be our friends.” -Lucille Bluth
I love it when Caleb slaps my boobs at parties in front of everyone. He hits me because he loves me.
The Tea Party movement really underscores the fact that politics is show business for ugly people.
This lady agrees with you
She also wants to eat your face…
okay so my pic didnt show up
Her face is about 10% too for her head. Observe the transformation that occurs by up sizing her face by 110%
Freaky, huh?
Yeah, but the hair!
god, I hate making fun of people’s looks on the internet. but she is so odd looking I can’t get over it.
Yeah I’m not to crazy about it either. I made an exception in this case because she happens to be a tea partier who is trying to pass an immigration bill modeled after Arizona’s in Michigan… because those pesky Canadians are taking all their jobs??
At least our papers will probably be as colourful as our money, eh?
Wow, what a huge asshole. That’s all.
Stop all of this! One more post about Caleb Howe and he’s going to get a guest spot on Glenn Beck’s show. He’s mine and I don’t want to share him with the world! He will totally forget about me as he searches for bigger and bigger celebrities to mock.
Trevor, as far as randomly getting attention for being stupid/crazy, I think our boyfriend is more Nick Madson than Joe the Plumber. I’m not worried Glenn Beck would want to make him the next American Hero or anyone other than us wants to see him around again. That’s why he’s so interesting to us. He’s just so unlike-ably and unforgivably stupid/crazy. I want to jump his fucking bones.
Caleb was telling me over beers last night — When will Stephen Hawking get the message and JUST SHUT UP?!
ugh, we are all terrible at dating boys.
Maybe we should date babies instead. I hear they have really soft hands.
I know a baby I could introduce you to. He’s really into music and has some serious Photoshop skills.
Is it this guy? I’ve had my eye on him for a while.
Not that nerd, this guy:
You’ve finally found someone who makes my girlfriend (Ke$ha) seem acceptable! I can’t wait to rub this in my folks’ face.
“SEE, DAD, MY HUMAN TRASH HEAP IS NOT THE WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD! YOU JUST DON’T UNDERSTAND MY GENERATION!
WEB 2.0!”
It was difficult when I found out my boyfriend cheated on me with Ke$ha. But we got through it, because it turns out things didn’t go very far with them. It ended with Ke$ha kicking him out the door, screaming, “I HAVE STANDARDS, YOU FUCKING NIGHTMARE.”
Can we make Ebert’s reply the winner in the Monster’s Ball?
A wedding finally!! I wonder where it will take place.
Probably a shooting range.
I know who we’ll get to DJ……..
I give Chris Howe two thumbs…in his eyes!! Didn’t see that coming did you, Howe? Now you literally can’t see ANYTHING!
oh wait, i meant Caleb. Great, now I’ve blinded an innocent stranger. Sorry Chris Howe, whoever you were – I’ll describe all the sunsets for you.
“Eh, I had a good run.” – Chris Howe’s eyes, 1974-2010
Nobody expects the itsahotdogeyegouge!
I think Gabe just turned our love lives into the plot from Pear Jam’s Better Man.
I hate Pearl Jam
[PJ 4EVR!!!!!]
Pear Jam on the other hand: delicious.
Of course you wouldn’t Steve, you’re the worst.
no. pearl jam is the worst.
Don’t TEST me REX_PANTHER.
I get scared everything there is a Tea Bagger post on Videogum. Eventually, one of them will accidentally use google.com instead of hatesearch.net and find Videogum.
*everytime
Is this the place on the blog where we can share tea bagger stories?
I have a tea bagger relative who forwarded me an aol looking type email that had a bad photoshop job of Obama’s face on a christmas tree ornament with the caption “It’s finally okay to hang a black man from a tree.”
Even I have my limits, people
Wow, they’re not even bothering to pretend anymore, are they. Your relative is exactly the kind of person who is going to realize they chose the wrong side for Race War 2020: Ultimatum.
This guy knows what you’re talking about:
In Bruges? Anyone?
i had to hide some old high school “friends” on facebook because of shit like that. i didn’t delete them because i occasionally like to get drunk and troll comment (yikes! i’m just like my boyfriend). and i grew up in the soshuhlist bay area too, i can’t even imagine what it’s like for people from REAL america!
This is as much about my ignorance as anything, but one of my best friends is very conservative and we are both too old to try to change the others’ minds so we either avoid politics, or we listen to what the other has to say, say “you’re wrong,” and move on to something else.
One time he became upset with my use of the term “teabagger” (to describe the people mentioned in this post, not the other thing) and I had to admit that I honestly didn’t know what they were really called. He told me and said “that’s what you get for getting all your news from…” and named some blogs that really are not known for their news coverage.
What we get from this story is that a. I need to get my news from news sources and b. you guys, I am friends with a teabagger, what should I do?
Foxy J, they called themselves Tea Baggers first, literally for months before someone finally bothered to tell Grampa about John Waters “Pecker” and what tea bagging means. They quickly changed to Tea PARTY and now claim it is persecution to call them Tea Baggers. But they called themselves that first so we should respect that and stick with it.
iantenna, I killed my facebook for similar reasons. Just because I enjoy a trolly comment now and then doesn’t mean I want all boundaries between different sets of people in my life completely removed
Here is a trolly comment for you to enjoy:
Have you seen Troll 2? It’s rad. Can’t wait for the documentary (pronounced dock-you-men-terry)
I thought they were called teabaggers to conjure up the metaphor of america putting their balls on their enemies (liberals, illegal aliens, correct spelling and grammar, etc) faces. You mean that’s not an accurate description?
But for reals – these guys have now messed with TWO of my favorite national treasures: The Rodge and Rep. John Lewis. And also Barney Frank who makes hilarious dining room table jokes! Who’s next? Abe Vigoda?
What I’m saying is that I hope all of these mofos have so much fun at dinner. SO MUCH FUN.
YOU CALL HIM THE RODGE TOO?
My boyfriend always wears turtle neck sweaters, but he refers to them as “Throat Corsets”.
My problem with the teabaggers is that they don’t know nearly enough about tea. You’d think if they spent all that time bagging tea they’d at least be able to recommend a nice chamomile, but all I ever get is blank stares and racist pamphlets.
“Give me liberTEA or give me, just the TEA!” – what their slogan should be
If those assclowns lightened up and had a nice cuppa Earl Grey, I’m willing to bet they would be about 20 times more tolerable.
look it is tough being single out there! sure he’s a horrible idiot who constantly hurts my feelings deeply seemingly out of boredom, but i dont want to be alone anymore. i dont need love, i just need somebody who will find my body before my cats start eating me.
“You know, Super, I’m not as expert on flag etiquette as you. Tell me, which do I fly when I’ve found you dead before your cats start eating you?” -Your husband.
Yuck, even retyping that for sarcastic effect made me feel like I need a shower. Or to watch that lion reunite with his former owners or something.
It’s posts like these that remind me why I fell in love with VGum in the first place…
Not that anyone should be defending Mr. Howe, despite the fact that he is our boyfriend and our love for him is unconditional, but does it seem to anyone else who follows him feel like Roger Ebert goes out of his way to kick up controversy every once in a while?
I have nothing but the utmost respect for the man, he’s way more brilliant than a guy who gets paid to watch movies needs to be, and I know he has made a living off of sharing his opinion for decades, but it seems like he can be overly antagonistic sometimes.
Still, that doesn’t excuse anything Howe said about Mr. Ebert or his illness, and he’s still a huge asshole, obviously.
Sigh. That first sentence is a grammar nightmare. Apologies, didn’t read that bit over.
I’m really not sure. This incident has prompted me to Follow him, and everything I’ve read about “the controversy” in my opinion deserved saying. There IS a difference between what you have the right to do, what’s in poor, taste, what’s patently disrespectful, what’s openly hostile, etc. Hating from behind the shield of patriotism has been a major American pastime, especially in the last ten years.
It’s just unfortunate that the guy’s been a movie critic for all those decades when he apparently should have been occupying some high government office.
YES I AM NAIVE FOR 57. It also explains my full confidence in the fact that this time our boyfriend really will stop drinking bathtub moonshine all night while he’s on the AOL.
Disagree, shepherd old boy! I took his flag shirt twit as supposed to make people go, “Hmm, I never thought of it that way,” not get stupid angry nine ways from NASCAR.
Btw, the “controversy,” afaik: Anti-immigration kids planned to wear US flags on Cinco de Mayo, as a way of telling Mexicans at their schools “We hate you being here and Mexico suxx butz.” How do you NOT twit that maybe this is kind of misguided? If you twit.
Okay, enough talk, I’m off to gouge out Chet Howe’s eyes.
Oops, sorry, Chet! I meant to gouge out Caleb’s eyes. Here, let me introduce you to Chris. He’s going to describe the sunsets to you, after he hears about them from itsahotdog.
“The Great Howe Blinding occurred as the result of repeated comment typos on May 13, 2010. Experts blame the blog that used to be Videogum before it overthrew the Lawnmower Man for control of the Internetz on December 31, 2011.” – Chapter 13, p.143, THE HISTORY BOOKZ
to be fair, the whole controversy (intentions of students aside) seemed to be created by the VP. He singled out the students wearing the flag shirts, freaked out b/c he thought something bad would happen, and kind of preemptively kicked them out for the day. At least from what I’ve read there wasn’t really any turning-into-violence hostility going on, he just sort of caused it all. And is obviously an idiot.
Yeah I’ve been following this one too. Roger Ebert, man. He makes you think about life, and gives you a reason to check your twitter.
I don’t even want to sully Ebert’s dignity with my…nearly uncontainable disgust. At this man. And his people. And their “movement.” So I … won’t.
“It’s one thing to be angry about HUMAN BEINGS HAVING ACCESS TO AFFORDABLE HEALTH CARE. I can definitely understand why you would be so upset about that. BOOO! They should get sick and die by their own bootstraps, right? Besides, insurance companies are neat! And they need regular Americans like you and me to DEFEND THEM FROM THE MEAN GOVERNMENT. Definitely. You guys have got it so figured out it’s crazy. Just kidding! Looks like my communist doctor gave me a prescription for Sarcasm Pills. (To be taken with ugh.)”
this was just brilliant. i’m talking the most perfect paragraph i’ve read in videogum history. bravo.
Let’s start encouraging these guys to secede from the union. I think we should all stand between them at rallies and shout, “I think we should secede!” You know… sorta mock their voices out of the corner of our mouths until they catch on and start saying it on their own. I think it could work. Then we could kinda pretend to fight them but really just back them into a part of the country we don’t like anyways. Like… I dunno… central Alabama (it’s debatable… I know… we’ll figure it out. I’m from Cleveland so who am I to judge someone’s roots. We’ll have a reasonable debate as a team to pick the spot). I’m just saying will pick a place and give it to them! They already have a little flag… I don’t think they’d object to the rebel flag, right? We can give them all a little rebel flag to hold. And then they can sit on their lawn chairs with rifles waiting for us to come try to take their right to harass people with cancer away… but we’ll never show. They’ll just sit there, self satisfied, in their new land of freedom and leave us alone forever!
Probably for the best that I’ll never be president.
“We must return to CONSTITUTIONAL FORM OF GOVERNMENT!” – These knuckleheads over here
“You mean the one where Africans only counted 60%? Or the one where women couldn’t vote? Or perhaps the one where that delicious six-pack of Schlitz hanging from your index finger would have been outlawed?” – Senator Tankerbell, from the great state of Uh-No-Doy
remember back when that video was floating around of that guy in ohio throwing dollar bills at a person with parkinsons? anyone else see that gem? well, some newspaper interviewed him a few weeks later, after he had been outed, identity-wise, and was subjected to some well-deserved brow beating. and his interview was all about how he didn’t know what came over him, and how he was just possessed in the moment, and how he would normally do anything so vile and yaddayaddayadda. and that’s what freaks me out about this movement (and other crazy militia movements and hate groups) is the absolutely insane mob mentality that it can exert on a person. obviously that doesn’t excuse what that man did, because it was fucked up and vile, but there’s a million small ways that the poor, that minorities, that gays, etc get needled in this country, and it just irks me to no end that it seems like no one really pays attention to these systemic issues of demonizing less powerful populations until someone is dragged behind a car or what have you. and i know i always go off the damn rails on posts where these issues come up but goddamn. i know that it’s wrong to say “these people” about any identifiable population, but these people are fucking horrible. but the people who are even worse are the ones who either don’t say shit about what they’re saying or the ones who say far gentler, but ultimately almost more offensive, comments about the populations these groups are targeting. i’d rather go face to face with an obvious asshole than try to reprimand a polite one. soft racism/classism is by far the worst.
I’m totally with you on this until the part about people not saying anything being worse that the aggressively confrontational assholes. I gotta say, the asshole throwing money at a man with Parkinson’s is worse than the person not confronting him about it. He’s automatically the worst, and there’s no way to be worse than the worst.
And let’s not forget- these aren’t people that can be reasoned with, so standing back and letting him hang himself (as would surely happen in this age of cell phone cameras and youtubes) is perhaps more effective than getting in his face and looking equally unhinged. And the fact that a polite asshole is self-aware enough to tone down their ignorant rhetoric indicates he/she might be a bit more reasonable and amenable to an intelligent exchange. Maybe. Hopefully.
Either way, I hope the video of that asshole haunts him for the rest of his days.
To combine what I was attempting to get at with what southernbitch said, the quite polite ones are the worst b/c they are usually the ones who are intelligent enough to not look like an asshole when, in reality, a lot of those guys are the ones disseminating all this garbage in the first place. The guy throwing dollar bills is just an ignorant prick following a crowd, the quite polite guy is the one who wrote the emails that that dollar bill guy read and suddenly became politicized.
I’m seeing what you guys are saying now. When southernbitch referred to people not saying anything, I wasn’t thinking about people within their movement that were feeding the hate, I was thinking about bystanders who may or may not think they’re all nuts but choose to not get involved.
I made this helpful graphic to show illustrate what you’re saying:
I will always upvote Time Bandits screencaps.
Urm, that’s not from Time Bandits. It’s Master Blaster from the Mad Max with Tina Turner and the Thunderdome. But you can still upvote it if you’d like.
You know? As soon as I posted that, I knew I was wrong.
For future reference: Small people riding around on big people = upvotes.
yes, that was exactly what i was trying to say. and no. my job is to literally sit around and try to nicely talk to people about undoing racism and classism and moving forward in a collaborative decision making template. and just because people will be polite to me to my face as i say these things just means that they don’t give a shit what i or other organizers trying to move past historic schisms are doing. they don’t care. they have what they have and they don’t want to share. it is actually so much easier to talk to someone who is blatant about their bigotry because it’s right there on the table. and when i say easier to talk to, i don’t just mean attack, but to actually sit down and not beat around the damn bush. but it’s the people who don’t even recognize the offensiveness of what they are saying that are the ones it’s hard to deal with, because they see themselves as nice people, and nice people can’t be racist, so why are you trying talk to me about racism, little girl? you just don’t understand the reality of the situation, and you can’t honestly expect little old me to be able to help those people with all their problems. it has nothing to do with me! they’re segregating themselves! they’re poor because they have bad habits! i had nothing to do with our history as a country, it’s old news, we’re all on the same footing now, so it’s not my responsibility!
i could go into my detail but i’m always paranoid of outing my organization on the internet. i’m not saying that you’re a failure if you don’t angrily confront people who are being complete assholes about this shit, but i definitely do think that far too often people look at the tea baggers or whomever who is doing the current fucked up shit and their reaction is, “oh, man, those people are crazy, we should just let them be, talking to them makes me uncomfortable”. it’s fucking lazy for people who are against this type of rhetoric to not do anything about it.
That’s what is so nuts (aside from the actual nutters involved). Its pretty clear that there is a small, educated, well-off group behind the scenes of the Tea party movement pulling the strings. They use clever half-truths and soft racism/classism, disseminate to the wackos who in turn garner the attention of the masses who just seemingly lose control. I suppose of I were a more cynical man (Highly unlikely, I already got my Phd in cynicism) I would say this is likely how all political groups are run but the Tea Party just seems like a whole new animal.
I often wonder what would happen if the shoe was on the other foot and there were hoards of working-class people from the liberal end of the spectrum who felt marginalized formed some sort of similar movement. I just don’t think it would happen though. I feel like that side is just too smug and self-satisfactory to take to the streets and spew bullshit policies and hatred just b/c they got a bunch of anonymous emails forwarded by their asshole liberal buddies.
And that is the danger, a lot of these people have never been political and have a loose grasp of what they are actually talking about but they persist. The elites who are mobilizing them can push any button they want and get a response.
I’m not sure that made any sense or is even completely true but there is just some even more sinister side to this whole thing that makes me nervous.
basically any time there has been a large leftist movement in this country, the leaders get put in jail, deported, or assassinated. yay.
what’s so amazing about this movement is how co-opted the talking points have become- like, for instance, the southern louisiana tea partiers. south louisiana has been epically fucked by big corporations and insurance companies (not to mention the government, but a lot of that fucking over comes directly from neo-liberal starve-the-beast shit), and yet somehow they truly believe that they can trust corporations and for profit insurance with their well being, despite the overwhelming evidence that no, that is not what’s going to happen.
recently i read “all the king’s men” again, and i kinda realized that what the south needs right now is huey p long politicking back. because the discourse down here right now is so odious and backasswards that it just stuns me.
ugh, i mean to link to this article with this comment: http://www.alternet.org/story/146616/what_if_the_tea_party_were_black
sorry to always get so seriousgum on you guys. you’re just lucky that you only get this on the internet on certain posts. my poor unfortunate real life friends have to listen to this kind of shit when i get plastered at bars, and it’s a sight more sweary and far less coherent then. and then i fall of my bike while going home. fun times!
Fantastic article. Why don’t people get this? I really don’t understand people who say “I’m not racist” but then would forgive the white mob with guns but be totes freaked by the black mob. SouthernB, when you tell people stuff like, “Okay, you’re not racist, but flip it — if the mob were black, would you feel any differently and why do you think that is?” is there then a lightbulb and they go “Ohhhhh…”? Or not so much?
Southernb, I really like your comments and perspective, and I have the feeling the world needs you to be doing what you’re doing. Don’t bike drunk! Being braindead or justplaindead is counterproductive to your work!
my friend used to get drunk and try and take her little electric scooter home. It was pretty hilarious chasing/walking after/next to her while arguing about the safety of drunk scooting. …y’know the first time.
the best (worst?) part about that video was this one dude in the crowd with a sign reading, non-ironically, “government hands off my big mac.” while i agree that the mob mentality can be a very scary thing, to me the scariest thing about this tea party movement is guys like this one. he sat down at home with his poster board and sharpie and REALLY THOUGHT ABOUT IT. this poster was the culmination of his world view and that is fucking scary.
There’s just… is there ANYTHING else that needs to be said besides, “Reading that makes me ill?”
Appalling excuse for a human being.
Guys, it’s cool. Nick Madson already replied to Caleb Howe:
“@CalebHowe You craven, pudding-spined clitoris of a man.”
Really zing’d him!
The only sane reaction to the sad existential reality that is Caleb Howe:
Or this?
Sometimes, I really want to do what Dexter is doing in this .gif, but I know I will just have to clean it up later. And I am far too lazy to pick glass shards out of my keyboard.
Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see
NO! “Dexter.”
Nope, I meant Dexter. How bout next time you feel the urge to correct someone on the internet, you resist? Or fuck yourself, either one. I’m not picky.
C’mon people…kitten!!
i.imgur.com/R2mf8.jpg
You’re a bit late Gabe, your boyfriend wrote this: http://is.gd/c7JSk
Blurg. Wrong Link: http://www.mediaite.com/online/i-dont-like-roger-ebert/
Your Boyfriend needs to learn the definition of “False Equivalency”.
When did Steve Winwood get a twitter feed?
Caleb Howe is the boyfriend America deserves, not the one it needs.
“I’m not a professional journalist, so I can’t verify whether or not any ice-cold vodka was involved”
I’m pretty sure, however, as an experienced blogger you certainly can tell when ice-cold vodka was involved. Just as I imagine you.
V-gum, you make me feel downright patriotic!
I wish you would’ve been there to back me up the other day when some teabagger jackass picked a facebook comment-fight with me. After defending myself in what I thought was a rational, open-minded and conversational way, he told me he wished I would die and then deleted me.
Who ARE these people!? And why do they hate everyone so much? It’s crazy!
Anyway – thanks. You’re the greatest!