OBAMANIA

Seattle practically exploded like a teddy bear when Obama won the presidential bid, and my friends in Portland say it was the same around here. Strange episodes of completely spontaneous geriatric bingo burst out, with people shouting things like MCCAIN! I SEE MCCAIN!

As I surf the net, however, I see that people have gone completely out of control with Obama Mania.

For instance, this man has taught his dog to say "Obama."



Others have discovered the effect of Obama's presidency on the far future:


People are making overt references to Obama being Superman:



Or some sort of legendary creature:Whatever happened to the old days, when people were satisfied with painting enormous murals of their candidates?


I would like to end this post with a picture of this guy who has an Obama tattoo on his hip, but I debated long and hard and decided against it. You can google the guy, though. Two things will come up, this guy and some guy who had a tattoo artist (who does not specialize in realistic likenesses of the candidate) decorate his calf.

So instead I will leave you with this fashion accessory:


That's for you, Miss Alexis. I expect to see these in your earlobes when next we meet.

Obama Dog via BoingBoing.
Spockbama via Gateway Pundit.
Obama shirt and dragon via Zimbio.com.

Letterman, McCain, Mikalatos... together again for the first time

This morning started with a few hours at the Met, which I'll tell you all about later when I have more time. I know what you really want to know is how my adventures with Letterman and McCain went.

Krista and I arrived and stood in line to pick up our tickets to the show. We talked with the various Late Show workers and they could tell we were something special. They told us secret code words. They gave us special sheets of paper with secret initials. They marked our tickets with a magic signal. All of this was designed to make sure that we were put in the Very Front row. They said it was because we were cute and smiley. We could not deny that this was true, and so we accepted their invitation to sit in the Very Front. In fact, Krista and I sat at Letterman's feet during his monologue. We could reach out and grab his fancy red and white polka dot tie. But we didn't.

I could feel in my bones that Letterman sensed my presence. And not just with his eyes or ears, but with his deep comedic sense. So I wasn't surprised when he walked down to K and me during the first commercial break and said, "If McCain won't come out to talk with me, I want you to come up and be interviewed."

I laughed. Ha ha ha! But I should have known that Dave is not one to joke. He was serious. Deadly serious.

Luckily, McCain *did* come out for his interview, which is for the best since I wasn't prepared. Dave went after McCain pretty hard during the interview, but McCain is a tough guy and he fought back with good humor until he saw me out of the corner of his eye. "Is that you, Mikalatos?" he cried.

"Yes," I said.

"You gave me a lot of trouble when I was in Arizona and people brought up your poetry contest to name new poets laureate!"

"I know," I said, "And I'm sorry."

Dave interrupted to say, "Matt, I've been thinking this over carefully and I want to hire you to be on the show. Would you like to be the Ed McMahon to my Johnny Carson?"

I frowned in deep thought. "I don't think that I can do that."

"You could just be a writer for the show," Dave said.

"No, I can't do that either. I have a job that is deeply important to me."

"What sort of job is it that you have?"

"I am... a missionary," I said.

"GOOD LORD!"

"Precisely."

Dave and McCain exchanged a glance. "How about we do a song and dance number together instead?"

I laughed, but Dave insisted. So McCain, Dave and I danced like a whirling storm of flying feet and sang a heartbreaking but hilarious song about Broadway, Presidential politics and Barak Obama's new plan to get us all kitties.

After that Ne-Yo came out and we had a dance off. I will admit that he won, though.

We all parted with manly hugs. I gave Dave my silver flute so that Dave and I would have no hard feelings. I still think it might be booby-trapped.

After all this Krista and I were tired, so we went out, grabbed dinner and then went to yet another Broadway show. Whew! It was a fun, exciting day. The next time I have a chance I'll give you a little update on the show we watched tonight (The 39 Steps) as well as our time at the Met.

Getting our Letterman tickets

Special thanks to the friendly Kate at CBS who kept calling us back until we actually connected on the phone so that she could give us our tickets. Once we finally connected this morning, Kate had to ask my a trivia question to make sure Krista and I were worthy to enter into the presence of the Great Letterman.

Our trivia question: Where does Rupert G work?

I totally aced it.

We're going to be at the show on Thursday, when John McCain is scheduled to appear. Last time he didn't show and Dave was not happy. Here's a clip from that night:



I told Kate to let Dave know that if McCain was busy again on Thursday, that I would be glad to fill his slot, even at the last minute. She said she was sure that Dave would be glad to know I was available.

I didn't notice McCain or Obama mentioning this

Common sense dictates that in a debate one should mention the trebuchet, the atomic bomb of the middle ages.

As you know, one of my own campaign promises is that we will use this marvelous tool to hurl those who annoy us far into the air and away from us. I wanted to show you how serious I am about this promise, but since the United States is such a litigious society I had to have my supporters in Japan set up a secret trebuchet experimentation post in Britain. Here is an example of what you can expect in the near future if you elect me King:



Nets optional, of course!

It's about time that a blog called "revolution" discusses politics

Yes, I know. You have all been waiting with baited breath for me to make a political endorsement. It would seem that since my poetry contest dealt a crippling blow to the McCain campaign that perhaps I would be against him. Then again, the complete lack of mentioning Obama could be the sign of a deep-seated feeling of hating all he stands for. Hope. Change. Feh! I hope we never change.

Just kidding.

No, one thing you can count on here at BHR is fair, balanced reporting where we never make a mention on how you vote in Presidential elections, unless someone we know happens to be running.

I did notice yesterday, however, a brewing brouhaha related to pastors endorsing political candidates. I know what you are thinking: "Did Mikalatos really write the words 'brewing brouhaha'?" Yes, I did. Now I need you to focus so we can move on. First, as you know, it's illegal for pastors to make political endorsements from the pulpit. It's a separation of church and state thing. We don't want pastors, you know, using their influence in political campaigns. If they do something like this, the IRS will remove their tax-exempt status. Some pastors yesterday said things like, "This is more important to me than money. Besides I can get our tax-exempt status back easily." Anyway, some pastors are planning a big "preaching rally" where they will get together and "name names" politically... so that the IRS will revoke their exempt status... so that they can sue the IRS... so that the IRS policy on this issue will come to court and be challenged as unconstitutional.

Now. I will just say, first of all, that my preference is that pastors talk about Jesus. The idea of a rally designed to talk about politics with the intention of suing the government is ludicrous. Pastors have better things to do. And yes, I know that Jesus cared about politics a lot, and as I recall his big point was, Pay your taxes.

But actually, here would be my preference. Instead of giving pastors a chance to publicly declare their political allegiance, what if we took that right away from other people? This would be awesome. I am sick of hearing everyone else's opinion on who I should vote for.

I believe we should start with entertainers. I love it (for those of you lacking sarcasm sensors allow me to say **SARCASM OFF THE PORT BOW! MAN THE HARPOONS!**) when an actor stands up and says something like, "You know me from such box office hits as 'Phishing Protection' and 'The Zebra Connection.' Because of my professional ability to pretend to be other people you should vote for my favorite candidate."

You are thinking, "That law is unenforceable." No, no, no. The IRS made a law to enforce it against pastors. Just do the same thing for actors. It would be something like, for every time an actor publicly says which candidate you should vote for, the IRS will take all their wages from their next film. This would then be distributed to the people of America for having to listen to the Hollywood endorsements.

Next, we could make a law where politicians are only allowed to say things that are meaningful and specific. We could create some news shows that do something more than partisan sniping and sound bites. We could reform the senate and the congress. We could build an enormous trebuchet from which to launch people who annoy us.

The easiest way for all these things to happen, of course, would be if I was in charge. So I am asking all of you to vote for me as King of the World. I don't want to do it, but if you all voted for it I promise I would do it well. The unique programs and ideas that I would bring to the world stage would literally change the world. First, we would change the name of the world to Fun Land to increase the intergalactic tourist traffic. Then we would make the internet available for free to everyone. Then we would make it mandatory that every bowl in the world receive three scoops of ice cream. This, my friends, would be only the beginning. And don't forget the Giant Annoying Person Trebuchet Launcher. We could launch other things, too, on festival days.

Now please excuse me. I need to descend to my secret throne room from which I manipulate world events.

Now we're on the National Review website

Here's the link.

For those of you stopping by for the first time... well, we're not really a poetry website. And Michelle won the contest to become Poet Laureate, but it wasn't via voting. I gave her the unofficial title because the people of Arizona don't have an official poet laureate, so I took the authority upon myself.

Fox News Covers the Burning Hearts Revolution

Fox News wrote an article referencing BHR this morning.

Apparently someone in Tennessee asked John McCain if he could name the Poet Laureate of Arizona. But, as Fox News rightly points out, the only Poet Laureate of Arizona is the one that we crowned here at BHR during the First Annual Poet Laureate contest. You may remember Michelle Lawrence. And you may remember the contest, where we "unofficially" awarded poets laureate to each state of the union which lacked laureates.

Which just goes to show you that reading BHR prepares you to be a better presidential candidate.

I'll send a note to the McCain Campaign to see if they would like to make a comment.

In the meantime, here's a reminder of the winners of the contest, and links to their poems and bios:

Arizona: Michelle Lawrence Down Reflection
Massachusetts: Eva Ting Open Casket
Missouri: Rob E You Must Be Misstaken
New Jersey: Jill James Puberty
New Mexico: Kasey Martin Spun
Ohio: T.M. Baird The Flock
Pennsylvania: Adam Struble What Crazed Eyes Have Already Seen
Washington: Alexis Youngs I Used to Love My State of Origin But Now I Have My Doubts

UPDATE: I forgot to mention that Washington now has an official poet laureate. Sorry, Alexis. But I suppose you can still be the unofficial one. You may recall the time that I sent Governor Gregoire an email telling her about our silly little contest. She never responded to my email. I guess she was too busy getting an official laureate. Hee hee heeeeee!