GO FORWARD 4

Punks, Dykes, Fags and Al Gore

So I'm wondering what Al Gore's up to, aside from trying to scare the poop out of everyone with global warming, and I keep hearing about "Current TV." The description sounds like an expensive community access channel, but I thought I'd take a look with an open mind.

Now I know what Al Gore really wants for America.

The "video preview" at current.tv for June 2 was something called "Stache." It doesn't take long to figure this one out.

It opens with "Haley Hottpink," a twenty-stomething New Yorker whose first rambling sentence is, "Wanting to go out at night is kind of a universal desire that alot of people have, especially in New York, especially when you're young, especially when you're queer, and you wanna just go meet new people, you wanna drink a little bit, and you wanna make out with someone on the dance floor..."

Stache is an ongoing party. It's members, according to "Tommy Hottpants," are "rocker dudes and punks and dykes and fags and trannies and drag queens."

A cocaine-using drag queen calling himself "Duch" says, "We're rock music, we're nudity and sexuality and getting drunk and doing drugs."

The video reinforces their claims.

This may be an interesting study in the worst of America, but is it really the showcase piece for Current TV? And if Al Gore wants to run for president again, is this the image he wants to project to the rest of the world? Will this make the French love us more? Okay, maybe, but will it make the Muslims respect us more?

If Gore gets the nomination, this will be fun. All a Republican hackster has to do is get this Stache video and intercut it with Al Gore talking about Current TV.

Here are actual quotes from Stache and Al Gore, both on Current TV.

Al Gore: "The world is changing before our eyes...and there's a growing wave of people that just want to be heard."

Tommy Hottpants: "Rocker dudes and punks and dykes and fags and trannies and drag queens."

Al Gore: "How many of y'all would like to see an opportunity to talk about what's going on in your world that you can participate in with television?"

Drag Queen Duch: "I can say racial stuff, I can say religious stuff, I can say political stuff, and people just laugh."

Al Gore: "We are about empowering this generation of young people in the 18-to-34 population to engage in a dialogue of democracy and to tell their stories of what's going on in their lives."

Drag Queen Duch: "If I could support myself entirely on drag, I would in a heartbeat."

Al Gore: "There is a quasi hypnotic trance induced by television...people cannot move their thumb muscle to change the station."

Haley Hottpink: "I kind of work a rocker slut look, but then I try to be taken seriously the whole time."

Al Gore: "Distributed computing unlocks the surge of energy to allow individuals to democratize the dominant medium of television."

Stoner Zach: "Now it's ready to take over the world."