Bearded Bakker back from vacation

The Bearded Dragon

Jim Bakker has finally returned from vacation and hopefully he's all rested up because there are a lot of foodbuckets stacking up on the set that need to be moved!

Morningside's resident eunuch Zach Drew is back at the announcer's helm. He happily announces Jim's guests for the day. Naturally, foodbucket master Frank Davis is Jim's first guest upon return from vacation. Oh yeah, and Kevin Shorey. Do you think Zach realizes that he has taken Kevin's spot as the fat announcer?

Resident Eunuch Zach Drew

As we get our first glimpse of Jim and Lori, one immediately notices Bakker's beard. It's scruffy and gray and makes him look like an old Koala bear. Lori looks lighter, maybe she had some foodbucket-fat sucked out of her arms over the extended vacation?

Zach mounting his chair (right side)

Jim and Lori welcome 'Uncle Kevin' aboard, and as the camera pulls away we see Zach in the background struggling to navigate one of his big haunches up and over a chair on the opposite side of the stage, it looks like he's mounting a horse. Given the seating arrangements, I think Zach knows he is Kevin's replacement and doesn't want to sit near him. Either that or stage manager Mondo is worried about seating those two big bulls together and risking a full stage collapse.

Koala Bear -An animal indigenous to...

The Bearded Dragon announces that today is the 13th anniversary of the day he proposed to Lori. Lori uses this announcement to steal a little bit of the spotlight off of Jim's beard. She says that the proposal 'wasn't very romantic' then laughs obnoxiously. Bakker unromantic, well gee there's a surprise. She goes on to tell the story of being in San Francisco, living with her mom and volunteering at the Master's Commission. This is probably code-language for 'I was fresh off a drug bender, crashing out in a flop-house and getting free lunch at the local soup kitchen.' She says that Jim called and first asked her mom if he could marry her, which she calls 'sweet'. I would call that 'weird'; after all, Bakker was a sixty'ish ex-con and Lori was a forty'ish ex-druggie with five abortions to her name...isn't asking for permission at that point sort of academic?

Jim Bakker doesn't like being laughed at

Lori continues the story and says that after Jim asked her mom (which was 'sweet'), he then proposed to her over the phone, which was unromantic. She then bleats out more obnoxious laughter, this time directed towards Jim. Jim tries to defend himself, then Lori bleats some more. Uh-oh, Bakker's getting pissed now. He's trying to talk and Lori keeps bleating like a sheep about to be shorn. Jim shifts in his chair and grabs the arm as a look of anger sweeps across his face. He begins to speak and Lori interrupts with another round of baying, pointing a thumb at him as if to say, 'Get a load of the old man getting all hot-under-the-collar!' 

Skeeter clacked away and earned pity laughter

Jim finally regains control, but exactly how is shrouded in mystery since the episode is heavily edited in this section. We get some strange edits, time elapses, and now everything is fine and 'Grandma Char' is invited up to flap her gums about the whole thing. This old bug clacks away with some unfunny stories about Jim's proposal, and we see Jim give a long fake laugh to humor her. The woman looks like a mosquito.

Ahh, now Jim mentions his 'weeklong vacation'. Kevin points out what everyone already noticed but was afraid to ask about, the beard. The Crypt Keeper refers to it as the "Sean Connery Look", then we get an actual side-by-side comparison of Jim Bakker and Mr Connery.

Sir Jim Bakker?

Bakker gives a little mug for the camera, then attempts to imitate Mr Connery's voice. As Bakker attempts the voice, he drops his chin to his chest to try and get deeper while saying, "If I could just get that, [voice deepens] voice, you know." From off-screen, Kevin tries to keep the momentum for Jim by prodding him with, "Bond...James Bond." The ball's back in Jim's ungodly court now, and I can see that he's both embarrassed and excited to try the famous line in the voice of Mr Connery. He's dying to do it, but at the last second he pulls back from the brink with a very un-Connery-like statement of the word "Yes"(which wouldn't make sense in this context even if it was Sean Connery). And in case you're wondering, he sounded like Master Yoda, not Sean Connery.

'Bakker. Jim Bakker."

Jim says he asked Lori's permission to not shave. He also told her that he's not going to have his hair colored anymore. We'll see how long that lasts. Lori then comes out and says she loves hair coloring, then goes one further by stating that she's saving up foodbuckets to use for bartering with her hairdresser when 'there's no money left'. I honestly don't know if she's crazy or just stupid. It's probably a mixture of both.

With Bakker's opening monologue / Sean Connery comedy bit done, he moves into the foodbucket doom and gloom. Jim tells everyone that they should expect more beards in the future when there's no electricity. But Jim, just go give Lori's hairdresser a foodbucket and let him shave you?

Kevin sitting in Zach's chair.

Jim asks Kevin for a song, but first Kevin's cue card says it's time for birthday gifts. It looks like Morningside has invested in a gigantic swivel chair for Kevin. Scratch that, for Zach...Kevin's fat flanks are merely warming the seat for Zach, who is still seated on the opposite side of the stage. I guarantee you Kevin will fart in that chair before he goes back out on the road, just to spite Zach. Kevin announces the first birthday: a 90-year old Bakker zombie who appears lost but happy. She gets a free Lori Signature Necklace, valued at $35.

Kevin turning in Zach's chair.

Jim interrupts birthday announcements to make an announcement of his own: Jim Bakker's Cereal. That's right, straight from Food For Health, you can now buy Jim Bakker's very own Organic 8 Grain Cereal. The cost is $25 for a 5 lb bag of feed, and of course they're all gushing about how great the value is. Skeeter Graham pipes up from her chair about how healthy the cereal is, though I'm fairly confident that ol' Skeeter isn't cracking into all eight of those grains with them fake chompers of hers. Jim Bakker Cereal: Bullshit in Every Bite!

Jim Bakker Cereal: Bullshit in Every Bite!

Kevin rushes very quickly through the rest of the birthdays and anniversaries, then gets to his song. I don't blame him. The big fella is probably getting a flat rate to be Bakker's lackey with the only upside being his chance to advertise himself and his website with a song. It's in his best interest to sing, and sing he does. He plops himself right in the middle of the crowd and tears into a song. It's a mediocre performance, but Kevin tries. He tries.

'Bakker's Breakfast Club' indeed

   We segue into a segment showing foodbuckets being created at Food For Health. Then Bakker introduces the man himself, Frank Davis, President of Food For Health. He comes out to a round of applause. Does this guy have any integrity whatsoever? He's flying out to Morningside and he's appearing on The Jim Bakker Show, cozying up to [convicted] Shyster Extraordinaire, Jim Bakker. Can the guy not understand that what Jim Bakker does with his foodbuckets is devious, dishonest and wrong? Frank Davis, must you take every bloody dollar handed to you, no matter how it's earned? Have some integrity for god's sake.

Where is your integrity, Frank Davis?

Jim ratchet's up the scare tactics, asking Davis, "The nation's out of potatoes, is that correct?" Frank Davis replies, "We are virtually unable to get any potatoes...until the new harvest." So you, Frank Davis, are okay with Jim Bakker misleading people about 'the nation's potatoes'? Why not say, 'No Jim, the nation is not out of potatoes." Instead, you answer tangentially to keep the aura of fear floating around all of Jim's inbreds, thereby padding your own slimy pockets. My wife went to the store recently and guess what she saw all stocked up, in multiple varieties? Potatoes, you turd. Potatoes as far as the eye could see.

Jim's uncited, scary news story

Jim goes on to proclaim from some uncited source, "The US has no remaining grain reserves." He then contradicts himself through the same uncited report by reading, 'the only thing left...will be 2.7 million bushels of wheat." Jim, wheat is a grain. Your own bible tells you so (See John 12:24 for starters). You are intentionally misleading people and contradicting yourself in the process. The Bearded Dragon's forked tongue is twisting and curling around in it's disgusting reptilian mouth as it lies and deceives the willing but unwise. And people wonder why I blog about Bakker? The guy is a warty toad. Meanwhile, Frank Davis sits and counts his dirty money.

Kevin Shorey doing what he does best!

Jim orders Mondo to begin cooking up some foodbucket slop for the audience to eat. Jim and Frank move into a pre-scripted discussion about beans so they can hawk $100 Bean Buckets (or as I call them, Fart Buckets). Now they're talking about rice, which leads to Rice Buckets. And now a twist: Fast Frank Davis is moving into selling Tomato Buckets; get yourself a 10 lb bucket for two-hundred big ones. I wish I had that bucket right now cause I'd splat a tomato right on Bakker's big head. Everyone in the audience, including Bakker and Co, are chowing down on the slop. We get the obligatory closeup of Kevin Shorey stuffing his face with a heaping spoonful of food. I think Kevin might actually like this particular foodbucket preparation because every stage shot we see shows him with his face buried in a bowl.

Money problems? What money problems?

Jim wraps up the show by reading down his product list, making sure to cover everything he's selling. He has various foodbucket deals for sale, and now Fast Frank Davis is including a tiny little solar charger with his foodbuckets. Jim connects the solar charger to his Ipad for demonstration purposes. You know, an Ipad, those expensive little gadgets that run from $500 to $1000 a pop? I don't see Lori with an Ipad yet, maybe she'll get one as a Lori's House business write-off once they pull in some more fear money.

Kevin puts his empty bowl down and gets a crack at one more song. He's not standing up this time though, that full belly of his is staying put in Zach's giant swivel chair for this go-round. He'll just sing it from there.

How will The Jim Bakker Show end?

Will history repeat itself?

After watching The Jim Bakker Show for many years and watching the hijinks going on down there in Bakkerland, I've often asked myself: How will it all end? I don't have to tell you what I mean...you know exactly what I mean. How is Bakker going down this time? Is he going back to the slammer in a spectacular explosion of tears, handcuffs and clanking prison doors?  Or will we bear witness to the hideously ungraceful aging of GrandFrog Bakker as he morphs before our eyes into an actual amphibian? An amphibian, by the way, who will ultimately jump into the swamp of oblivion and have to answer to Judge Jesus.

Hey look, real tears!

Imagine Bakker getting that call he's been dreading all throughout his post-prison life: Special Agent Justice of the IRS would like to speak with him over some allegations of 'financial irregularities' at Morningside. A wiretap of Bakker's Morningside phone would be transcribed as follows:

Jim Bakker: "Lori.....we've got a problem. Shred everything."

But shredding wouldn't matter. If the IRS got a whiff of Bakker's ass again, he'd be through. The guy would go down, and he'd go down hard.

IRS Investigator: "So these love gifts that you sell...Are you telling me these are just donations and you're not actually selling any of this? Please tell me, Mr Bakker. Help me understand."

We all know Jim Bakker wants nothing more to do with courtrooms after that first dance, and personally I don't think he'd make it a second time. They found the guy hiding underneath his attorney's desk like an ugly little fruit rat last time, so convincingly in fact that he served some of his prison time in a mental hospital.

Bakker's Attorney: Jim, you in here? [sees Jim under desk] Ahh crap...hey can someone get me a broom? He's under the desk again.

Oh no, Jim wouldn't be going back to the Big House this time. They'd find him out somewhere on Morningside property, maybe even the land they've set aside for Lori's House, with his misshapen head dunked in a water-filled foodbucket.

The ungraceful aging of Jim Bakker

But hey, maybe that doesn't happen at all. Maybe instead we're all treated to the slow rotting of a foodbucket-salesman-who-once-was-a-preacher. Bakker will shrink down, his hunch growing, as gravity pulls him downwards to his eventual destination. We'll all watch Bakker turn more sour, more grouchy, as he snaps at Lori and fires more Kevins from the show. Bakker's hair will completely disappear and his shoe-lifts will get higher as he strives to maintain his already-short stature. We will witness an old frog entering it's final stages, snapping it's greedy tongue out at every fly it can catch. We may even see a befuddled Bakker performing in skits as Lori grabs the reins and tries to reinvent the show to secure her own 'legacy'.

And then, one day, Bakker will be gone. His froggy body will lie in state at Morningside as Lori milks people for 'Legacy Donations'. Perhaps a spate of natural passings at Morningside as Bakker's most-devoted zombies will away their condos to 'The Bakker Estate' and fly off in a vain attempt to follow their Saviour, Jim Bakker. It'll be great news for Lori though; she'll finally be able to fill those stuffy, dusty condos with unwed drug addicts and their unwanted babies.

Nobody knows how and nobody knows when, but The Jim Bakker Show will end one day...Is Jim goin' to jail again?

Jim wrapping up a vacation tan, pushing Seychelle water filters

Jim's been on vacation for a month

Bakker's been on vacation for a month now. I'm pretty sure he filmed all those 50 Years of Deception shows in a week or less, right around the 4th of July. Then he skedaddled off on vacation, apparently unconcerned that there will be no more corn in the United States come August. In that time we've been forced to watch Philip Cameron feeling up on his Moldovan girls while pleading for more money to build Stella's House. Bakker gave him yet another $100k, so now Cameron has $200k for Stella's House. How much could it possibly cost to build an orphanage in Moldova?

I had hoped Bakker would be back at work this week but he's not. He's still on vacation. The good news is that he tore himself away from his margarita just long enough to check in for a few minutes each day before rolling repeats of old Carl 'Dr Seychelle' Palmer episodes.

'Excuse me sir, are you lost?'

On Monday, Jim tells us that he and Lori are 'taking a few days off and resting' at what he calls 'the cabin'. He's got a nice little tan working and he's wearing a rayon floral print shirt, but it looks like he forgot to shave as there's a whitish glow around his froggy lips and chin. If he weren't Jim Bakker, I might mistake him for an elderly, drunken vagrant from Florida who gets day work opening doors at a local hotel. Bakker wastes no time getting to the point, giving us some unverifiable doom-and-gloom news stories ranging from droughts and floods to the liquidation of Borders Bookstores.

Jim shouldn't be out in this heat

These lead into his big sales push for Seychelle Water Pitchers. Jim points out that it's '120 degrees' outside, while he moves into a news story about drought in Somalia. Jim admonishes the viewers to 'get ready', because 'serious times are here'. Meanwhile in the cool air-conditioning of 'the cabin', the ice cubes in Bakker's unblended margarita clink as they melt down into the glass. If Jim is so concerned about getting ready for these serious times, why has he taken a month off on vacation?

"BURP!"

Tuesday and it's Jim again in the same shirt. Bakker once more opens up with an excuse for why he's been on vacation for so long: he's taking a few days off before he starts 'the next 50 years' of deception in ministry. If he doesn't get out of that heat, I don't think he's gonna make it another 50 minutes. He rehashes the same scary stories as Monday, and now he has a water pitcher full of ice cubes for demonstration. Bakker tells us that "ice can be the most contaminated product that you put in your body", then fumbles and mumbles about the reasons why. The heat looks brutal out on that deck. There are trees in the background but I don't detect even a hint of wind moving through them. Jim pours his hot ass a nice cold glass of water and sort of chuckles while he does it. I can't deny that Jim is really, really hot out there. I can see the wheels of his mind turning as he's pouring that ice cold water into his cup: "Ahhhh, delicious ice cold water on a hot day...thy cup runneth over." He takes a drink right on camera, then gives us a look as if he's going to burp.

'You don't put the water in the bottom you waterhead!'

Wait Jim, don't drink that! Don't you know that those terribly contaminated ice cubes are still unfiltered? You don't place them inside the pitcher, you place them in the plastic container above the pitcher and let them drain down through the filter. Your ice cubes are not even being filtered, ya dumb waterhead (Jim's word, not mine).

"Wow, what a heat wave we're having!"

Wednesday and Bakker greets us with, "Welcome to today's broadcast. Wow, what a heat wave we're having!" He says this almost joyously, because Jim Bakker knows that heat = death = love gifts = $. As he says 'heat wave', he touches his brow in a completely phony gesture of exasperation. He's burning up out there but he loves every minute of it since it'll bring more money into his webbed hands. He's wearing the same shirt, except now it's starting to show signs of perspiration. It's painfully obvious that he's filming these all on the same day, probably within the same half-hour. In fact, the ice-filled pitcher (and completely drained cup) from Tuesday's opener are right there on the rail next to Jim, and the ice hasn't even melted yet. Come on Jim, at least change your shirt man.

Jim would turn it up to 150 degrees if he could

Thursday and yep, same shirt. Now Jim's holding the cup, and rightfully so because it's blistering out there. Bakker is literally baking in the sun. He gives us another quick excuse about needing to take a rest after 50 years of television, then it's off to the races with Seychelle leading the pack. The offer this week has been a 2-for-3 on water pitchers for $120 plus shipping. Good grief, Jim must be moving thousands of these things. Jim tells us that the most important love gifts he's ever given besides his 'parallel bibles' are the Seychelle Water Filtration Pitchers. He then takes another good long drink of water and rasps out, "It's a hundred and twenty degrees where I'm sitting right now." Jim, for god's sake, why are you standing out there in the heat baking your brain? Go inside where it's air conditioned, you dolt.

Cup on top of pitcher = let's wrap this up

Friday. Jim has wilted before our eyes under the angry Missouri sun. He's had to take a seat now in a chair on the deck. His shirt is becoming splotchier from the perspiration and he's slumping over a little while bracing himself with his arms. The cup is on top of the water pitcher, signifying to me that Jim told Lori, 'We'll shoot this last little segment, then it's a wrap.' Of course, dehydrated Jim can't stop himself from taking in one more gulp of that ice water. The guy is making me thirsty now.

"Mmm. Cool, clear, water."

He swallows the water down his gullet then announces, "Mmm. Cool, clear, water." As he drinks his water down, his tongue sort of clicks around in his mouth. The thing has probably swelled up from extreme thirst; if Bakker doesn't end this nonsense soon I think he's gonna start panting like a dog to radiate away his body's excess heat.

Jim rehashes all the earlier doom and gloom news as a capper. He focuses on Somalia and tells us that we should start sending Seychelle water pitchers to people in "Africa and all the other places", explaining that they could get water from the sky or even 'a dirty contaminated creek'. That's one of the more retarded things I think I've ever heard Jim Bakker say. Of course, he goes on to tell us that we should have them too.

Jim Bakker's frog legs, revealed.

 Now the camera pulls back to reveal Jim's froggy little legs. There's actually a stripe on the inseam of his pants that make his legs look amphibian. Bakker finishes up as he always does with a recap of products for sale.

As a footnote, if you really feel the need to buy a Seychelle Water Filtration Pitcher, shop elsewhere and get them cheaper. And if you have the choice, don't even buy Seychelle. After all, the guy is in the mix with Jim Bakker. Is that someone you would trust with your hard-earned money?