Wonkette
FUCK YEAH GET AMP’D! BUSINESS! MAKING BILLS, A FORM OF AMERICAN CURRENCY!
What is this terrifying thing so many of you sent us this morning, out of nowhere?
The GET MOTIVATED Seminar is world famous for its energizing, action-packed, star-studded, fun-filled, spectacular stage show. CNN, 60 Minutes, USA Today, TIME, PEOPLE, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal all rave about it! This motivational mega-show packs more inspirational firepower than a stick of dynamite!
Et tu, Colin Powell?
Who’s the woman in the above picture? Is that the corpse of Jon Benet Ramsey, reanimated by black magic?
Do I get a free blender if I go? I ain’t goin’ ‘less I get a free blender.
Who is the woman whose curling iron crapped out halfway through?
Only $19 per office. The catch is if you don’t want to see Dubya, it’s $200.
Larry McAwful: Isn’t that Stockard Channing?
I think her curling iron just crapped out halfway through that morning.
Larry McAwful:
Whoever she is, she looks like she had her hair done at the Dominican braiding place in my neighborhood.
Larry McAwful: It’s Kirstie Alley, who will speak about her tragic battle with cheese dogs.
“…stick of dynamite?” Isn’t that the thing that you run the f*** away from as fast as possible?
The most terrifying thing about the whole mess is that Rudy G. is listed as “America’s Mayor.” When the fuck did we agree to let him keep that title? Everyone knows it’s Corey Booker now.
marley: 1/2 of Haysi Fantayzee?
Whatever the distance is between me & people who feel the need to attend motivational seminars, it’s not great enough. I’ll take my cues on positive thinking from Barbara Ehrenreich.
Oh, and you know who else was a great motivational speaker?
SayItWithWookies: Oval Office pays extra.
Any reunion that includes W, Powell, and 9udy 11uliani…..you might want to avoid. Seems a likely alert level orange day.
I can’t think of anyone more motivational than W, he even motivated several former Confederate states to elect a black guy President. How amazing was that?
Shirley Temple, is that you?
W is going to motivate everyone to fail upward?
I can’t go. There’s only so much a man can spend on snake oil.
Oct 26th: Puppet Show
and George W. Bush
Terry: Where’d she get her makeup done? At a Dominican bakery? Because if her face isn’t caked with white flour and red dye No. 2, I’ll shave my pate.
memzilla: But you run with INSPIRATIONAL fear.
Where’s Ben Konop? Boo! Boooo, Ben Konop!
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED
Larry McAwful: Terry Bradshaw.
memzilla: You should have told my cousin. He’s missing his right forefinger and thumb because of a quarter stick of dynamite and a coffee can. I’m from the kind of town where this is common.
So if this traveling circus wants to come to Mercer County, Pennsylvania, I’m sure it’ll get a decent turnout, as long as they don’t charge much for admission. Most people are still out of work there.
Larry McAwful: You made me laugh, but personally, I prefer “magicks” in such a context.
live blog! road trip!
Ken and Sarah would have wanted it that way.
W looks more black than colin
Rev. Peter Lemonjello: Seems a likely alert level orange day.
I don’t see Dobbs in there.
This motivational mega-show packs more inspirational firepower than a stick of dynamite!
Don’t worry. That stick of dynamite Colin Powell is holding up is only a hot dog with a black thread stuck in the end.
No, it makes sense. W can describe his business practices so people will know what not to do. And, after all, he certainly is very ’special’.
Tony Robbins and the Rich Dad/Poor Dad are conspicuously missing from the roster. Wait, it’s only 19 dollars for your whole office. The basic premise is how to go broke and fail in a spectacular fashion. That’s why Dubya is the featured speaker.
Terry Bradshaw is inspiring, in a “if a stupid bayou boy with a mediocre throwing arm can luck his way into 4 Super bowl rings and a Fox NFL broadcasting gig, imagine what you could do!” way.
P.S. The lineup is here.
P.S.S. Jimmy James: Dave, I didn’t think motivation was important, either, ’till I got involved with some motivational seminars and it really changed my life.
Dave: Really? That surprises me. I didn’t think you were the sort of person that would attend one of those.
Jimmy James: No, I don’t. I put them together. Pack a few hundred suckers into a motel ballroom, hire an out-of-work actor to paraphrase the opening scene from “Patton”, charge ‘em five-hundred bucks a pop and boom, bob’s your uncle.
That looks as much like a lineup of potential “rocketship to the sun” candidates as anything else.
I like how Bush seems to be kinda standing in the back with an insecure grin on his face - like it’s high school and he’s been run out of every single clique he’s tried to hang out with out on the lunch court, and sidling into this group of losers is his last ditch attempt to avoid being a total social pariah.
Wow. Zig Ziglar is one seriously deformed looking motherfucker. He looks like the bastard offspring of Richard Simmons and the head alien from Mars Attacks, only more constipated.
magic titty: Well, it ain’t Franco Harris.
Did Colin Powell wake up one day and decide that he was going to get a bulldozer and drive it right over his reputation, just for the hell of it?
GideonGlib: Yess!
FUCK YEAH! Dr. Robert Schuller gives me a chubby!
Rev. Peter Lemonjello:
Yeah, but not even terrorists are interested in Fort Worth. Have you been there?
magic titty: Waitaminit… that really IS Terry Bradshaw! I thought he only did weight loss commercials these days. Or is that Dan Marino?
Rumproast: No no. It’s Kwame Kirkpatrick. Or better yet, Memphis’s own Prince Mongo.
Larry McAwful:
I’m betting it’s either Merle Norman or Mary Kay. She’s got the look.
Larry McAwful: I know. Larry Flint has just gone too far.
hobospacejunkie: President George W. Bush: “I CAN Swallow This Pretzel: The Power of Optimism”
Colin Powell — notable for being completely steamrolled as Secretary of State by Cheney and Rumsfeld.
Terry Bradshaw — spending his extended dotage as an NFL buffoon.
Robert Schuller — one significant success is that he got Phillip Johnson to design the Crystal Cathedral for him. Otherwise, just a run-of-the-mill parasite of the old and feebleminded.
Rudy Giuliani — owned Florida in the GOP primaries. Or at least one electoral vote therefrom.
Dubya — legacy of destructive stupidity far too extensive to list here, but includes the greatest act of military stupidity since Cannae and the drowning of a major American city.
In my ideal world this wouldn’t be a motivational seminar — it would be bait for the re-education camps.
From when this thing came to Hartford, CT:
“”The real superstar is Jesus Christ,” intoned Tamara Lowe, who with her husband, Peter, runs Get Motivated! Seminars Inc., the Florida company behind Wednesday’s event and similar events throughout the country.
“To be perfectly honest with you, it pissed me off,” said Bill White of Westfield, Mass., who helps manage a CVS store in Bloomfield. “I have my own beliefs and I don’t like it when somebody tries to shove it down my throat.”
White said he felt misled by the event’s advertisements, which emphasize business skill development, increasing profits and overcoming challenges, but make no mention at all of religion. “I almost feel like I’ve been lied to,” he said.
Event officials declined to discuss the event’s religious aspect.”
(From http://www.courant.com/business/hc-get-motivated.artsep10,0,660262.story)
Who is the lady? Why, it’s Tamara Lowe, Top Sales Expert and Author of Get Motivated! What the fucking jesus is wrong with you people?
Really, it’s a contest to see who can put more marbles in their mouth. My money’s on the chick.
I just love how everyone gets a key attribute except GW; and that Colin’s area of expertise is their “Leadership” slot…
Rudy G.: “I did my job well on one terrible day and now I’m awesome at everything, no matter what.”
Capricatony: Yes, he did. And on that day, he went on TV and said that we had good reason to attack Iraq.
He hasn’t recovered since.
I can’t even imagine Dubya delivering a motivational speech. Liz needs to attend this with a hidden video camera.
I am at a total loss to come up with anything that Dubya could say that would motivate anyone.
For more Tamara Lowe with a picture of her kissing her creepy husband, go to:
http://www.tamaralowe.com/pictures.htm
At nineteen bucks for the whole office, I’d think Wonkette could do a field trip and come back with some pictures.
NixonNow: Whoah — haven’t the blacks suffered enough?
America’s Mayor is Vincent “Buddy” Cianci. And if you disagree, you can go fuck yourself with a jar of his “Buddy’s Own” Marinara Sauce!
Terry: Well, it’s making me very uncomfortable, whatever it is. I know I’m going to have bad dreams tonight.
GET MOTIVATED SEMINARS!!
a.k.a. ‘Seven pant-loads and a hooker!’
That’s a painting that would be much better with mouse-overs and good alternate text.
But I do applaud the one guy who took time to get a wig and some makeup because other than him that’s a pretty sad tranny line.
Okay. Can we have the acrylic version with the dinosaurs now and also the Cthulhu version with the fire and blood? Please?
Jimb: Why it’s Tamara Lowe, Author of “PT Barnum Was Right!”
Joe the Plumber, hitch-hiking from Ohio as we speak.
I’m more curious as to how W can help improve profit unless it’s do the opposite of W he says.
A version of this roadshow, with Sully “Sully” Sullenberger in tow, came to my town a few months ago. I heard there were companies that bought handfuls of tickets at discounted rates and threw them at their floor bosses and said “hey take the kids out for a day, we got nothing to do here today anyway.”
Next day I heard some folks on the radio calling in to talk about the whole experience. Apparently every ten minutes someone on stage holds up a DVD of “motivational speaking” that you can buy in the lobby for $25 that supposedly has “the real shit” on it, just buy it you’ll see!
How is looking like Stevie Nicks going to motivate people?
Jimb: His hair! It’s….orange!
OpusOne: Of course I just e-mailed that to Jim… without reading the comments. I am lame.
However, please do peruse the ‘photo gallery of the event’. I think the first one, with $99 caption, says it all.
http://www.courant.com/business/hc-get-motivated-pictures,0,5243307.photogallery
I’m not sure why everyone wants Rudy as America’s mayor. He’s the only mayor to allow his City to be successfully attacked by foreigners, other than the mayor in the movie, the Russian’s are Coming.
Larry McAwful: He lost fifteen pounds on NutriSystem, and you can too!
How come Wonkette isn’t listed as raving about them? We’re doing that right now!
Here’s the flyer from last year’s event, which featured Miss Laura Bush as the star of its rouge gallery.
They’ve obviously lowered their sites this year.
What? No Balloon Boy?
These people do not know how to market anything.
Extemporanus: Their sights, however, are aimed as high as ever.
I am definitely more motivated now, not to go anywhere near that thing. You see, it works! And the good reverend doctor looks a lot like that V for Vendetta guy.
Maybe I’m old-fashioned, but to me, the gang-bang genre has just been going downhill since Annabel Chong’s day. Sorry, Tamara.
Motivational speech in the W. administration means waterboarding, sodomy and genital mutilation.
it’s easy to forget that W was nearly as profound a failure at business as he was as president.
it’s completely appropriate (although still overpriced) that you would get to listen to
the criminal moron dispense ‘wisdom’ for nineteen dollars a gaggle.
Wow… Laura Bush went rogue, too? Doesn’t any Republican know that “going rogue” is a British idiom for unprotected anal sex?
I got an urge to change my hairstyle. Can you make me look like Toni Tenille? No, wait! How about Diana Ross? No! How about BOTH of them!
Jimb:
Someone likes her deep-fried Twinkies: http://www.tamaralowe.com/photos/Tamara-on-stage-03.jpg
I think that female lady person is working a cold case.
Larry McAwful: Why it gotta be black???
proudgrampa:
Well, he can say that he’s a complete dumbass and utter failure but still managed to become President, so people in the audience can reach their dreams, too!
Geez, with Terry Bradshaw and Tamara Lowe in the house, who gives a shit about George W. and his sister Rudy? I’m stoked already!
The Usual Suspects didn’t have a lineup as creepy as this..
So, do they require payment in advance to register for this thing?
I don’t like what Bernadette Peters has done with her hair. Makes her look too trashy - not that there’s anything wrong with that, but here, it just doesn’t work. Also. Why is Palin on that list of motivational shills! Meg really dropped the ball this time.
mardam422: Because all white magic is good for is swapping lost teeth for small bills, getting stains out of light-colored carpets, and making reindeer fly.
How low can Bush go? Where will he whore himself out to next? Dirtbike racing? County fairs? The Jay Leno show?
professionalcynic: I heard he’s licensing his image for the new set of 9/11 collector’s glasses at McDonald’s. There’s George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell, Rudy Giuliani and Tony Blair. A new one each week—collect them all!
shadowMark: What he said - and I’ll kick in some registration $if Wonkette sends in a mole to report. And mock.
I don’t know what all this Get Motivated business is about, but I look at this crew and just see a bunch a people who couldn’t be bothered to read The Secret like Oprah told them to. No Skype for them!
That’s “Legendary 43rd President” to you, asshole!
I always wondered if Zig was a sellout, now I know; and colin Powell, he just can’t help fucking himself up can he?
An old job once sent me to one of these disgusting Get Motivated tent revival things.
My skin crawled. The big speaker at the end was Kansas basketball coach Bill Self (this was in Topeka, Kansas after all) who trotted out for about 5 minutes of boilerplate motivational bullshit cliches. In between, they tried to sell the crowd on all manner of religious-based investment seminars, religious-based motivational “systems”, and other religious-based business nonsense, all wrapped up in the guise of a “spiritually”-based motivational seminar. Ugh. Just thinking about it gives me the creepts
Oh, and the Zig Ziglar “speech” is hardly a speech at all. He can barely walk or talk anymore. It’s a short, canned Q-and-A session in which ol’ Zig trots out a couple crowd-favorite stories, and then they cart him off.
RubberSoul: Next week, closed for fumigation. And George W. Bush.
No Velvet Jones? Disappointed!
So there ARE people who will pay to hear a dipshit like Bush. Huh. I thought he would turn up in a cage at a county fair maybe, trying to eat something with his fingers. With a Steve Martin eyepatch, of course.
The FAQ page is classic.
“Are the Speakers Live and In Person?
YES! All of the speakers are live, in person, and extremely motivating! (Of course emergencies do occasionally occur — even for the rich and famous! — but it is extremely rare for us to have to substitute a speaker.) All of our speakers are locked, loaded and ready to go! Prepare to be blown away as you’re motivated and inspired by the best speakers and the greatest leaders in the world!”
Locked and loaded, babeeeee… Blow me away…
Jesus H. Motivational seminars are the anti-snark. I used to have to attend these things when I was in sales. It took a whole lot of drinking afterward to pretend it never happened. It took a whole lot of drinking beforehand to ensure I wouldn’t punch any of these relentessly perky people in the face.
Dubya still alive? Hm, who knew?
Wow. Did he age 20 years after leaving office? He looks almost as old as his father now.
PrairiePossum: I don’t know about the other two, but I’ve always found sodomy charmingly motivating.
This could be entertaining if only because I’m sure Rudy will go on and on about how he sprang into action the moment the planes hit the WTC and how important it is to show leadership the very moment goes wrong. Then he’ll be followed by W.
And maybe as an encore, they’ll get together and discuss the importance of hiring the right people.
Needs more Tilton.
Colin Powell on ‘Keys to Creating Diplomatic Solutions’??????
I’d go if they had those puppets from “Team America”
Fuck YEAH,
first I’ve got to get $19 though.
professionalcynic: And a Car Insurance Convention at the Holiday Inn in Childress, Tx.
memzilla: No, it’s what the remaining Republican base uses in their wardrobe.
Tamara is going tell us about the 6 “KNOWS” to Get the “YES”. Does she “KNOW” curling her hair like that gets a “NO”?
I’m in Fort Worth. If Wonkette, Inc. is kind enough to send me a press Id and/or $19, then I’d be happy to go and take pictures and hang out with the cute chick and interview the legendary 43rd.
Terry, my god,no, oh no. Terry, wtf? For $19? Please no.
Extemporanus: I just realized that that flyer is for this year as well.
George Bush is speaking in Ft. Worth on Monday, and Laura Bush is speaking in Charlotte (with the same crew) on Thursday.
Also, Jenna and Barbara are scheduled to speak at a wet t-shirt contest in the Twin Cities on Saturday, but unfortunately, Zig Zigler won’t be able to join them.
Who can resist seeing the permed-side-curls-with-straight-dyed-blonde-bangs look “LIVE AND IN PERSON”?
And all for only $19, Ron Popeil better watch his back!
What kind of business advice is Dubya going to give, exactly? “Make sure your parents are rich, rich, rich?”
Over/under on GW to hit the discount “motivational” carnival tour was 15 months, boy did I bet wrong! And what’s Schuller doing out from behind the Orange Curtain? Cash flow problems again?
Einstein: To the contrary–the opp’ty to view Tamara’s bouncy ringlets up close and personal is worth the price of admish by itself!
BlueStateLibtard: At most, he can perform a bad imitation of Mat Foley.
Shoe targets a-plenty!
OpusOne: Hawt:
“At one point, the former first lady produced a bobblehead figure of herself and mounted it on the lectern”
Snarkalicious: Alas, there are some things that even a fine blue cheese cannot make better.
Oh look, a Snow Whore and her seven dwarves.
I’m not talking about ATTENDING the conference, just registering for it.
Do you think products will be offered for sale during this event?
The website promises attendees can learn “How to Turn Irate Customers into Lifelong Fans.”
Is that what Rudy and Mr. Bush will be speaking about?
OpusOne: Well, goodbye to Hartford and its plague of thinking hominids . . .
“Hel-LO, Texas! YAAH! I see Jeezis got our special message out to all you fine believin’ peoples. We’d lahke ta start y’all off on a FABulous weight loss crusade, so when the plate comes around, please take two or three pounds of ungainly fat out of yer wallets & pockets & dump them right in. If you can’t give bills and coin, the girls in the sashes will take yer MasterCard and Visa. You’re gonna love feelin’ just as light as yer head!”
Sharkey: Do they use “live and in person” in the same sense in which Pikachu will appear “live and in person” at the mall? Imagine an actor in a giant W furry suit, speaking at a motivational conference!
Rumor has it that Crudy’s segment will include a live video feed to jail so Kerik can vouch for his mentor’s amazing leadership abilities.
What? Matt Foley didn’t make the cut?
Here is the seminar in 10 secs:
“Just as in government, the key to advancement in the corporate world is to own at least two good suits, there blue ties, and to lie your batshit greedy ass off.”
“Thanks Ft. Worth and goodnight.”
Down heah along the Gulf Coast, if what Ms. Tamara Lowe has is clip-on hair, it’s called “holiday hair.” If it is her own follicular material dyed, teased and curled into that configuration, I believe we can use the Condé Nasty phrase “aggressive choice.”
marley: Oh Fuck- that’s Monica L.
Ha ha, literally EVERYONE in that show is either a grade-A USDA Prime sleazebag or a candidate for the crown of Shit Midas. The only guy I didn’t recognize in that group, Rick Belluzo (even though I’m into computers, a bit before my time I guess), I wiki’d and he’s basically responsible for the death of Silicon Graphics, which I’m sure is of no significance to most of you but basically think this way: If somehow George W. Bush managed to get hired in the Obama administration and run it into the ground, it would basically be the same thing. Microsoft dude runs a company into the ground that was one of the big wunderkinds of the 1990s.
Oh, and he killed 64-bit back then too, at SGI and HP, basically paving the way for the AMD consumer horseshit we have now.
Is Trig or Falcon the key-note?
Oh Magog. Tamara Lowe is Rachel Maddow’s guest tonight, and she has motivated me to want to punch her square in the nuts.
ManchuCandidate: Are you kidding? He and his buddies have cleaned up nicely. Hell, if I wanted advice on how to screw over the country while (probably) snorting more blow than you can shake a Bernie Madoff at, then this would soooooo be worth the dough.
you gotta be fuckin kidding me?!?!?!
Capricatony: Bulldozer, et tu, my ass. Powell’s been doing these medicine shows for a coupla years now.
I was on the promotion committee at my church for a while, and the chair, a very nice, but, uh, not-real-bright woman, had just attended one of these. She quoted some Powellian bromide she’d just picked up at the super-fabulous motivational seminar while we were deciding which john to put our ads in, and the rest of us just kind of looked at her.
Thankfully, someone had the presence of mind to say, “That’s interesting! So…men’s room at the Gold Rush—too trashy, or no?”
So is this that terrorist incident that Bin Laden’s been threatening us with?
I didn’t realize sticks of dynamite were inspirational.
Motivational speaker? Really? I mean … wtf?
I keep thinking of a Dead Kennedy line: “Is my cock big enough, is my brain small enough, for you to make me a star?” But these losers all have small cocks, I’m sure, or none at all.
How come Rumsfeld’s not here?
proudgrampa: Maybe he can motivate someone to throw their shoes at him?
“Nation of retards” indeed. It must be wonderful to be rich and totally unaware of what an asshole you are.
Who’s the dude next to Giuliani with the Jesus Rays coming out of his head?