Sheesh. Nearly a day later. AP posted a story this evening on the Clark TV ads reported here last night. It says:

the 60-second commercial outlining Clark's achievements will begin airing next week in Iowa, New Hampshire and Clark's home state of Arkansas.

John Hlinko, co-founder of DraftWesleyClark.com, said he expects the ad to air ``hundreds of times'' over a period of weeks, but the actual number depends on how many donations the group receives.

You can watch the ad here. It's kind of a slow download (rather than streaming).

I've been meaning to say for weeks how much I've been enjoying Jon and Kelly on The Amazing Race. It took me awhile to warm up to them, but I really have. Kelly has turned out to be quite the trooper. This is a very physical game, and I give her major props for being the only woman left for awhile and beating all those boys. She hurt her hand the first time she punched those boards but she kept at it to break through all three sets. And then it hurt so she couldn't make a fist with it for the repelling challenge, but she jumped off that building one-handed anyway. That's fucking balls.

And I know a lot of people think Jon is an asshole, but I think he's a riot. Yes, he makes a nasty wisecrack now and then, and yes he gets mad at his girlfriend occasionally and once told her to fuck off. I make a lot of wisecracks too, and I have told a few boyfriends and girlfriends to fuck off. Who's a nice guy every minute of every day? How would you do with a camera trained on you 24/7?

I love how light-hearted his is about everything, and always eager to play. I like the way he plays. And the other teams seem to enjoy his company, and so does Kelly. I watch the way she giggles with him and clutches his arm, and I think they're good to/for each other 90 percent of the time. How many people do better than that?

And Chip & Reichen seem to have a ball with them, too. Editing casts a pall over all assumptions, so I put a lot of weight on how well the groups seem to like each other. They have the context. I put much less weight on Jon's gay-razzing in a couple clips. It's true that there's a clip on the CBS site showing Reichen saying it gets to him a bit, but he doesn't seem too upset about it. Jon seems like the type that will razz everyone about something: the fact that their gayness makes an easy target doesn't make Jon a bigot--as long as he doesn't get viscous or really hurtful about it. I have yet to see that.

I also don't think Jon's a homo. I would love to, cause he's a hottie and a fun guy, but I think he just likes to play. It's usually the guys completely at ease with their own sexuality who can pull stuff like pinching Reichen's nipple and jiggling his peck. I've known straightguys who like getting physical that way and they're usually switch-hitters only in my fantasy, not even close in real life. Any guy who had a true sexual urge to grab Reichen's pec would be afraid to even glance at it. Guys with those urges are scared to death of that stuff.

I may get hate mail for this, but I'd go so far as to say that if I had been on this race, Jon would be the one I'd be most likely to hang out with after. I just like people who like to play.

Of course I could be dead wrong on all the above. Editing, that's the trouble with reality TV. They might all turn out to be assholes or idiots. But imaging something better--or worse--that's half the fun of the experience.

Trenchant bon mot on God from the most unlikely source: a Daily Show reported segment on these stoners who couldn't get a license to stage concerts out in the country, so they build the bandshell anyway and called it a church. (Church of Feel the Love and Music? If somebody saw it and remembers the exact title, let me know. It was like a week ago. This post got lost in my system, and I just found it.)

They were pretty damn Wayne's World, but I couldn't help snickering at the head Wayne's lighthearted attitude, especially this crack about the biddies trying to shut him down: "If you were God, and you had control of everything, would you make yourself a tightass?"

Heeheehee. Let's hear that one again. Louder, this time:

"If you were God, and you had control of everything, would you make yourself a tightass?"

I actually empathize with the biddies being kept up all night, but the idea transcends the situation, doesn't it? So many tightasses in the world. Why do so many of them claim a special relationship with God? Sure don't look like His image to me. Maybe the image of God's sphincter. That makes sense. If He created man in His image, I guess every part of His anatomy had to be represented. Somebody has to play the ringlike muscle that normally maintains constriction of a body passage or orifice and that relaxes as required by normal physiological functioning.

But it's meaningless. Looks like a 99.9% chance of a non-elimination round tonight. They've already announced that the three teams are in a three-way final, that there's one more non-elim left, and that the finale is next Thursday. That would make tonight meaningless, unless one team gets really far ahead or behind.

(That did happen once in the first leg of the two-leg final. Oddly enough, the Guidos used the Fast Forward then and it set them so far back they were out of it. They took a slow route on a very long trip (train vs hiring a car or something) to save money. Bad move. But I would bet against that happening. Still, it should be fun to watch Chip & Reichen. And Jon and Kelly.)

I've been meaning to say for weeks how much I've been enjoying Jon and Kelly on The Amazing Race. It took me awhile to warm up to them, but I really have. Kelly has turned out to be quite the trooper. This is a very physical game, and I give her major props for being the only woman left for awhile and beating all those boys. She hurt her hand the first time she punched those boards but she kept at it to break through all three sets. And then it hurt so she couldn't make a fist with it for the repelling challenge, but she jumped off that building one-handed anyway. That's fucking balls.

And I know a lot of people think Jon is an asshole, but I think he's a riot. Yes, he makes a nasty wisecrack now and then, and yes he gets mad at his girlfriend occasionally and once told her to fuck off. I make a lot of wisecracks too, and I have told a few boyfriends and girlfriends to fuck off. Who's a nice guy every minute of every day? How would you do with a camera trained on you 24/7?

I love how light-hearted his is about everything, and always eager to play. I like the way he plays. And the other teams seem to enjoy his company, and so does Kelly. I watch the way she giggles with him and clutches his arm, and I think they're good to/for each other 90 percent of the time. How many people do better than that?

And Chip & Reichen seem to have a ball with them, too. Editing casts a pall over all assumptions, so I put a lot of weight on how well the groups seem to like each other. They have the context. I put much less weight on Jon's gay-razzing in a couple clips. It's true that there's a clip on the CBS site showing Reichen saying it gets to him a bit, but he doesn't seem too upset about it. Jon seems like the type that will razz everyone about something: the fact that their gayness makes an easy target doesn't make Jon a bigot--as long as he doesn't get viscous or really hurtful about it. I have yet to see that.

I also don't think Jon's a homo. I would love to, cause he's a hottie and a fun guy, but I think he just likes to play. It's usually the guys completely at ease with their own sexuality who can pull stuff like pinching Reichen's nipple and jiggling his peck. I've known straightguys who like getting physical that way and they're usually switch-hitters only in my fantasy, not even close in real life. Any guy who had a true sexual urge to grab Reichen's pec would be afraid to even glance at it. Guys with those urges are scared to death of that stuff.

I may get hate mail for this, but I'd go so far as to say that if I had been on this race, Jon would be the one I'd be most likely to hang out with after. I just like people who like to play.

Of course I could be dead wrong on all the above. Editing, that's the trouble with reality TV. They might all turn out to be assholes or idiots. But imaging something better--or worse--that's half the fun of the experience.

If you don't have cable, tonight is the night to see what all the Queer fuss is about. NBC is turning over the ER time slot to Queer Eye tonight, followed by an appearance of the cast on Leno. (Originally, NBC had slotted a half-hour condensed Queer Eye after Will and Grace. They upgraded to a full hour, after an hour of Will/Grace (a regular ep and a bogus clips show.)

They will be on Leno again tomorrow. The original plan was for the Leno makeover tomorrow, but that could have changed. My latest Tivo download still shows them on both nights, and so do the promo commercials.)

Last week, I wrote a post called Delusional, but I like it, which began:

It's ridiculous to treat Chip & Reichen as stand-ins for the whole big gay cause. I know this, but I like doing it anyway.

Apparently I am in crowded company. The post has generated 38 comments and growing (which is a lot for my site), and it's been fascinating to see how so many people feel about this. From Michael Bedwell :

Hero worship is an enduring human characteristic that, per se, is not "bad" or something to be resisted, whether or not it's a variation on the alleged "need" to believe in a "superior being." It's whom we idolize that determines one's maturity or morality. Hero worship can help us be/do better ourselves as we see, through the example of others, that improvement, even excellence, is possible. Even Chip called himself Spiderman after beating Jon down the side of the building . . .

Lots of discussion about the show, too--especially the ridiculous clucking apparently raging on a lot of message boards about Chip being an asshole--and internalized homophobia, gay-on-gay emotional violence and the gathering political storm.

Come join the discussion here.

Update: I had the wrong comment link for a few minutes, but corrected it. The server has also been hiccuping the past few days and comments are sometimes down. Try again in a few minutes if it doesn't work.

Those draft clark people are not fucking around. Has this happened before? I've heard of lots of "draft" movements, but they're usually pathetic. This one has raised half a million, organized 98 chapters in 42 states . . . and now a TV commercial, for a guy who may only be toying with a run.

DraftWesleyClark (not to be confused with DraftClark) launched a television ad Wednesday. They say it was shown to him on CNN (where he's a consultant) and will be again on Good Morning America this (Thursday) morning. I'll have to set my Tivo.

Doesn't sound like they have paid to show it anywhere. That's the amazing thing about ads these days: you don't necessarily have to pay to show them, or pay in more than one city, when the networks will do it for you on their "news." Although in this case, I'm glad, of course.

You can download the ad here. It runs a minute, but takes a few to download. Pretty impressive, I've got to say. Not the ad--which is not bad, not stupendous--but that they did it. And they did a good job of pitching it to appeal both to the public--boost his name recognition, boost their own coffers, which will help convince him he's viable--and convince him.
 and it's not bad. Ends on quite the rousing note: "He has never failed to answer our country's call. Now we call on him one more time . . . Draft Wesley Clark for president."

Meanwhile, the International Herald Tribune has a Wednesday story--apparently produced by the Boston Globe--saying:

Clark told volunteers last week to step up their efforts and prepare for an announcement in early September. . . . But Clark, who has never held elective office, increasingly sounds like a candidate, mixing bristling attacks on President George W. Bush's Iraq policy with criticism of the growing U.S. budget deficit.

Last week, volunteers said, he sent word to supporters to "crank up" their efforts, while he confers with his family before making a final decision.

Hmmm. Maybe he will jump in. That would sure make this race exciting. Gotten a little boring with Dean running away with everything and the Eight Dwarves moping about clueless.

---

Update: CNN posted it's Wed night interview with Clark late Thursday morning. Aaron Brown conducted it so it's not too revealing, but he does make it clear that he's seriously considering a run, talking to family about a decision. And he says Labor Day is not a hard date for an announcement.

And the ads are set to run next week in NH, Iowa and Clark's home of Arkansas (though is he actually there?) The group says how long they run depends on how much money they get. It will be interesting to see if they end up with more or less money than they started with.